There are two issues here - (1) Irreproducible research and (2) Negative results. (1) is clearly a problem and must be dealt with by scientific community and pr

There are two issues here - (1) Irreproducible research and (2) Negative results. (1) is clearly a problem and must be dealt with by scientific community and processes. Let me talk about (2). For negative results to be published, they too should follow basic patterns of positive results - innovative, scientifically rigorous. There are always more negative results possible than positive results. A negative result should be something which people think would intuitively work but wouldn't. For example - an apple falling from a tree and floating in thin air isn't a negative result because we all know that it's supposed to fall down to the ground via gravity. Edit - We also have a Journal of Negative Results http://jnr-eeb.org/index.php/jnr http://jnr-eeb.org/index.php/jnr