Governance in the scientific community

. . . “[H]igh profile” false science is unlikely to go undetected, perhaps because of the additional scrutiny that such manuscripts attract. In contrast, less prominent science is far less likely to be acknowledged as false. This suggests either that the scientific community holds attention-grabbing papers to a higher standard or that within the vast under-scrutinized literature much false science remains unacknowledged. This result contrasts with the finding that the lag between publication and retraction is uncorrelated with article, author, or institution characteristics.

Source: Furman, Jensen, Murray (Research Policy, 2012). 

A graph from the paper:

A draft is here (November 2011).