You're mistaken, I think, because one of your assumptions is not necessarily true - that wrong/useless results are a bad thing and slowing us down.
First, the notion that "wrong" research is bad. We have to remember that literally the best results science have to offer are in fact wrong today, and have been more wrong in the past. What science produces are models of reality, and while they may be highly accurate at predicting reality they are not in fact reality. They are wrong in some way. So we can't just throw out all of the wrong results because then we would have to throw out all of the results. Instead of going down this path, we can instead be content that some research is wrong, because the scientific process is one of continually refining those results. Also, we note that despite everything literally being wrong, society, technology, and engineering still make progress. Being wrong does not mean being useless.
Second, the notion that "useless" research is bad. The thing about usefulness is that it's hard to quantify, and it's also not a static property. Sometimes research that is useful in one era is completely useless in another. For example, deep learning wasn't very useful until the era of big data and limitless compute. Before then, people could make guesses as to the usefulness of this research, but no one really knew for sure how useful it would be when it was brand new. Should that research not have been done until it was more useful? I don't think anyone would argue that. How then, are we able to determine ahead of time how useful a research project will be? If we knew how to do that, then it wouldn't be research, would it?
So really, if you aim to cut off the bottom half of research with the intent that it would increase the sum total knowledge of humanity, you have to show how you:
1) identify the bottom half of research before it's conducted
2) quantify the "useful" research potential of a project, and how do you intended to squelch useless research while allowing useful research to persist unimpeded
3) intend to separate "wrong" research from "right" research
4) fund useful research while passing over useless research
I think the answer to those questions would basically involve re-inventing the scientific process.
I mean, just think of it this way: research that may turn out to be useless at least has the positive value of showing how something isn't to be done. This has the positive result of allowing someone else to try a different method, which may be equally useless, or may be the key to unlocking new knowledge. I think it's impossible to get the latter without the former.