Abstract
ABSTRACTScience is often romanticised as a flawless system of knowledge building, where scientists work together to systematically find answers. In reality, this is not always the case. Dissemination of results are straightforward when the findings are positive, but what happens when you obtain results that support the null hypothesis, or do not fit with the current scientific thinking? In this Editorial, we discuss the issues surrounding publication bias and the difficulty in communicating negative results. Negative findings are a valuable component of the scientific literature because they force us to critically evaluate and validate our current thinking, and fundamentally move us towards unabridged science.
Highlights
The impact of negative findings Increasingly, there is pressure on scientists to choose investigative avenues that result in high-impact knowledge
We focus on metabotropic glutamate receptors, which have been implicated in the pathology of schizophrenia and are proposed to be targets of antipsychotic intervention
Our findings showed that mGluR2/3 (Frank et al, 2011) and mGluR5 (Matosin et al, 2013) expression was not affected in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia in one of the largest post-mortem human cohorts to date
Summary
The impact of negative findings Increasingly, there is pressure on scientists to choose investigative avenues that result in high-impact knowledge. Rather than approaching a research question in a systematic manner, it seems that scientists are encouraged to pursue non-linear lines of investigation in search of significance, and many that have the luxury are known to tuck away negative findings (the ‘file-drawer’ effect) and focus on their positive outcomes (Scargle, 1999). Australian cell biologist Professor David Vaux recently published an essay regarding his own attempts to refute research and retract his work from arguably the most influential scientific journal, Nature (Vaux, 2013).
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