The reason funding goes to those that find 'good' results is the same reason why funding goes to those that start successful start-ups. Even though both parties probably have less control over the outcome than they think the perception is that they do and that betting on them again is a better bet than betting on someone that did not succeed to score.
That's how we're wired, we simply like success stories much more than that we like stories of failure.
The analogy doesn't completely work. If the data shows your hypothesis is false, or doesn't support its truth then it doesn't matter if you're the best experimenter in your field nor if you worked most competently the world is what it is (barring poor experiment design!).
An hypothesis isn't a product, falsifying your hypothesis is success - you've increased the pool of human knowledge (or increased the support for an element of it).
In business good and bad products can both lead to profit and can both lead to losses. Profit and loss can both be considered success and failure.
On your last sentence - I don't think it's as self-evident as it seems. We tend to like the successes that profit us but in general I'm not sure we humans are that congratulatory of other's success. Schadenfreude seems very popular.
False inherencies are the staple of those that wish to understand the world such that they might exploit it. If they weren't prepared to demonstrate that the pursuit of a solution was necessarily a fool's game then they'd have to give an actual shit.
That's how we're wired, we simply like success stories much more than that we like stories of failure.