No, it's about encouraging the correct behaviors, not the correct results. Most people fail several times while studying/practicing STEM subjects (or most subjects worth studying, for that matter). If we insist on telling little Johnny how gosh darned smart he is all the time, he may not be any good at handling that failure. Or he may assume that "he isn't a math person" because he's always been told how smart he is, and he just isn't getting it. Instead, we ought to be encouraging him to try harder, fail better, and reward him for persistence, and good study habits.
Society rewards results. Definitely. So getting excellent results is important. But, parents and teachers aren't necessarily there to evaluate results. They're there to teach Johnny how to get them. Rewarding hard work, and continued effort is one important way to get those results, and it hasn't been focused on. Instead, we tell him that it's alright that he didn't get the right answer, and he should stop trying so hard and come have a cookie so he doesn't lower his self-esteem. This has the opposite effect, he doesn't get the results, and he fails to learn about work ethic.