I can only speak to fMRI, but this is very common. I would say that the majority of fMRI studies add zero or negative value to the literature. They are expensiv

I can only speak to fMRI, but this is very common. I would say that the majority of fMRI studies add zero or negative value to the literature. They are expensive to do, and difficult to do well, so there is enormous pressure to turn bad data into papers.