> If you never get a positive result then you're probably just not good at science. Also I can't imagine any scientists who gets up and tries to fail everyday.
Science is this: Try to disprove (i.e. fail) your hypothesis. If you've failed sufficiently, then you have something that can be published.
> Just because your experiment doesn't work doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.
If experiments don't work then you need to redo them to figure out why they didn't work. An experiment with a negative result is not an experiment that didn't work. It worked, but gave you an answer you did not expect. Verify.
Every scientist I know (a lot) and have interacted with understand that a negative result is not a worthwhile result.
> If you publish your failure then future researchers don't have to waste their time walking down the same path.
Scientists often publish negative results. This is mostly done if it disproves some other published work that you do not believe, through some experience of your own, and want to test with a different test or a more rigorous test. But if it does not challenge something that's accepted, it's unlikely to get acknowledged and is therefore of low value to the lab and to the scientist that is publishing. They cannot afford to put that above their own career success.
And if they did they would find it harder and harder to get grant money and therefore will fail in the academic field completely. You cannot (except for extreme edge cases) contribute to science without money.
Science is this: Try to disprove (i.e. fail) your hypothesis. If you've failed sufficiently, then you have something that can be published.
> Just because your experiment doesn't work doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.
If experiments don't work then you need to redo them to figure out why they didn't work. An experiment with a negative result is not an experiment that didn't work. It worked, but gave you an answer you did not expect. Verify.
Every scientist I know (a lot) and have interacted with understand that a negative result is not a worthwhile result.
> If you publish your failure then future researchers don't have to waste their time walking down the same path.
Scientists often publish negative results. This is mostly done if it disproves some other published work that you do not believe, through some experience of your own, and want to test with a different test or a more rigorous test. But if it does not challenge something that's accepted, it's unlikely to get acknowledged and is therefore of low value to the lab and to the scientist that is publishing. They cannot afford to put that above their own career success.
And if they did they would find it harder and harder to get grant money and therefore will fail in the academic field completely. You cannot (except for extreme edge cases) contribute to science without money.