P-Values and Exploratory Research

Lately I've been talking a lot about the question of whether scientists should preregister their research protocols. One question that often arises in these discussion is: "what about exploratory research?" The argument goes like this: sure, preregistration is good for confirmatory research - research designed to test a particular hypothesis. However, some research (perhaps most) is exploratory, meaning that it's about collecting data and seeing where it leads. Exploratory studies