[_aavaa_]

> but more often then they don't

That part is true in all fields. And one of the things that pre-registration enables is the publishing of those negative results.

Otherwise, once you're done the research and got the negative result nobody wants to publish it (unless it’s very flashy). Without being able to publish negative results, and therefore read about them, each researcher must conduct an experiment already known, if only in private, to not work.

[Scarblac]

So he has to take time to write up those experiments he was doing as exploration, and nobody will read them because who wants to spend time reading about failed experiments.

People will still want to do their own exploring to get a feel for a problem.

[_aavaa_]

> who wants to spend time reading about a failed experiment.

A negative result is *not* a failed experiment. Mapping out the negative space is very valuable if the hypotheses being tested are worthwhile ones.