I do genetics and development, and the main sanity check we have is the distribution of mutant lines. If you say that mutant X does Y, other people are likely going to see that (or not) when they get their hands on it and start poking around. This strength of working with mutants is at the core of the success of molecular biology. Even if don't set out to confirm someone else's results, you're quite likely to come across some inconsistencies in the course of investigation.
If a field lacks that sort of mechanism, they need to take special care to address reproducibility.
As noted, this does not get rid of the confounding negative effects, where paper D was also used as a (in retrospect, faulty) premise as well. Though no one ever actually comes out and says 'D' is bad.
Over time, A, B, and C theories accrue significant weight while D falls off. It's not as explicit as some may like, but in the end the spirit of replication is well and alive.
The problem these days is that spending time doing replication is not glamourous and will not help you get funds.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility