Proving that something doesn’t work can be valuable data, too. Especially in research close to industrial interests.. celebrate failures!
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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well yeah, but there is money in knowing what to avoid. in academia it's more like "why can't i reproduce this effect i read about in this fancy paper, am i stupid or what", when maybe, they just got lucky, or had plenty of very reasonable analysis options to choose from, or simply fudged the numbers. i fear that in much of academia there is a huge incentive to publish at whatever cost
Make sure you publish that shit somehow so the next person doesn’t waste their time on the same experiment.
"Give me six lines of data harvested from the most honourable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
-- Pileated Woodpecker Richdude
I didn't know Richard Stallman did research.
Actually, this is Stannis Baratheon from The Witcher.
I remember listening to an episode of TWiV where they bemoaned that more negative results weren't published. They're useful, too, just not nearly as cool and flashy as positive results.
Big respect to researchers who publish and share statistically insignificant results.
Instead of doing what is far too common in science, manipulating the data until you find “significance” through twisted interpretations.
Biology papers and Photoshop, name a more iconic duo.
Is it valid science if you re-test the one that had the link to see if it was a fluke?
Not just valid, I'd argue important. It doesn't make the most exciting headlines and doesn't get funding very well, though, so it's not done nearly as often as it should be. A big part of science is not taking things at face value and verifying that there is sufficient proof for claims.
Plus, if both results agree, it statistically tightens the probability of a coincidence. The chances of a 5% chance event happening twice in a row is 0.25%, and three times in a row is 0.0125% so repetition can make the results more certain.
Null results are still results!
True, but try to get them published
I can say with some pride that I have at least co-authored papers with null results, and they did get published. I'm not arguing that what you suggest isn't true, but I have hope.
Lol I love this
A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory