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The major issue with research is how only successful results are viewed as worth while, and study results without a "positive" out come is viewed as a failure.
by scherlock 3y ago
The major issue with research is how only successful results are viewed as worth while, and study results without a "positive" out come is viewed as a failure. So this means researchers are incentized to p-hack or falsifying results since they need more funding.
The reality is these negative results are just as useful and can either help other researchers avoid dead ends or they might have a not great result but with some refinement to methodology might be worthwhile for further study.
Researchers should be judged on the quality of the research they perform, not their outcomes. A well crafted study that shows that further research shouldn't be done should be just a well received as a well crafted study showing more research should be done. The focus should be on the design of the study first, since no matter what the results it adds to the corpus of knowledge in a meaningful way
- armchairhacker 3y agoYou are 100% correct. The problem is, even without the incentive of money and employment there's still the incentive of fame, and negative results simply won't get the same attention and impact as positive results. We can give people with negative results PhDs and publications, we can continue funding them. But at the end of the day, people remember and researchers cite the team who invented the LLM, not the many teams who tried and invented the less-successful models.