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Indeed, most research projects generally don't. In general, researchers don't report results of failures. How many academic papers reporting a negative would
by alok-g 8y ago
Indeed, most research projects generally don't.
In general, researchers don't report results of failures. How many academic papers reporting a negative would go through the review process...
So there's a bigger debate here. Negative results would also be useful for the broader community, but do not get published in most cases, because the processes may not scale to accomodate them (given most research experiments don't). What technical solutions can help here, and how would a solution become economically viable?
- Ensorceled 8y agoPre-registration of experiments seems the best answer. Then you are motivated to add something to the registration, such as a negative results, rather than just looking lazy.
- naveen99 8y agoHow do we know the failures aren’t due to incompetence. You can’t depend on a failure meaning impossible.
- maxxxxx 8y agoYou can look at what they did , learn from it and draw your own conclusions.
- rightbyte 8y agoThat's true, but the same can be said for the reverse. How do you know that a research success is not really a failure. If anything, there is more incentive to forge successes than failures.
- alok-g 8y agoIndeed. If negative results can be published too and made useful for others, reduction in forged successes could be a side benefit.