While I wouldn't go so far as to say that huge number of grand designs with negative results are not science, it seems to me like they are trying to brute force the solution.

Every negative in a brute force attack only eliminates one key, and doesn't give much information as negatives are far more numerous than positives. It is not a very efficient way to search the space, and we should try to do a lot better if we can. It is the method of last resort.