No to Negative Data

Why I believe findings that disprove a hypothesis are largely not worth publishing.

A frequent criticism in biology is that we don't publish our negative data. As a result, the literature has become biased towards papers that favor specific hypotheses (Nature, 422:554—5, 2003). Some scientists have become so concerned about this trend that they have created journals dedicated to publishing negative results (e.g., Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine). Personally, I don't think they should bother.

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