quote
One aspect that might be a challenging obstacle to overcome is that this would require the scientific community whole-heartedly embrace null results. Franklin et al point out that:
Modern science’s professional culture prizes positive results, and offers
relatively few rewards to those who fail to find statistically significant relationships in their data. It also esteems apparently groundbreaking results far more
than attempts to replicate earlier research. PhDs, grant funding, publications,
promotions, lateral moves to more prestigious universities, professional
esteem, public attention—they all depend upon positive results that seem to
reveal something new. A scientist who tries to build his career on checking old
findings or publishing negative results isn’t likely to get very far.
end of quote
I beg to differ. Here we go
Case in point, the Cosmological constant problem
By Quantum field theory, its 10120 times bigger than its observed
EXPERIMENTAL results
We DO see the Cosmological constant brought up all the time. I.e. see Sean Carrol, in his
Caltech lectures
It is a myth that there are NO NULL results. Certain categories of problems, are celebrated as now for the time being allegedly UNSOLVABLE. which is a mating call for people to try to do them. I as an example tried it too, and still do.
Secondly the Riemann hypothesis, i.e. this one
quote
Has someone solved the Riemann hypothesis?
The Riemann hypothesis will probably remain at the top of mathematicians' wish lists for years to come. Despite its importance, no attempts so far have made much progress. Nov 11, 2022
end of quote
The goofs galore as to both of these, are widely celebrated and HARD problems, get people to put solutions in
print which get debated.
Even the failures are interesting and instructive: Very instructive
We can look at the idea of "null results" as maybe tied into this one
quote
What does Gödel's incompleteness theorem say?
Can you solve it? Gödel's incompleteness theorem ...
In 1931, the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorem, a result widely considered one of the greatest intellectual achievements of modern times. The theorem states that in any reasonable mathematical system there will always be true statements that cannot be proved.
end of quote
So there you go.
HINT null results occur all the time. And the INTERSTING failures may at times even lead to great papers.
I have seen that more than once