The incidents you described (which of course you made up out of your fevered
imagination, but without realizing it you have in fact generally described
the kinds of incidents that do occur) are occupational hazards in science.
If you had asked each scientist whether he really believed his life to be
wasted, each would have said no. A person doesn't become a scientist to win
accolades or honor or fame or even the respect of his/her colleagues. A
person becomes a scientist because he/she still has that child-like sense of
wonder at the mystery that is the universe, along with the overwhelming
desire to solve that mystery. The joy one gets from doing science comes
from the attempt to solve that mystery, not from success. As such, while
failure is still disappointing, it is not the crushing defeat it might at
first appear to be to an outsider such as yourself. The answer the
scientist got from his work may not have been the right answer, but it was
still an answer, which is infinitly better than no answer at all. Along the
way the scientist undoubtedly found other answers that were right, so he/she
would still have the satisfaction of knowing that he/she had advanced the
state of scientific knowledge. And now that the scientist knows the right
answer, he/she can use it to take his/her research off into directions that
might never have been possible before. Who knows what great things that
scientist may now accomplish, now that he knows what the truth is?
So your stories of failure and despair are really stories of transition, of
confidence in the scientific method and of hope for even greater discoveries
to come.
As a final note, no man's life is a waste if he can accomplish something,
and those hypothetical scientists you described did in fact manage to
accomplish much in the name of science, even if one of theirn proposed
answers turned out to be wrong. I find it an interesting comment on your
personality that you look upon these kinds of stories as tragedies, instead
of the triumphs that they are.
Kevin L. O'Brien