Critical thinkingArticle: LeBel & Peters (2011)Fearing the future of empirical psychology Because empirical data undermine theory choice, alternative explanations of data are always possible, both when the data statistically support the researcher’s hypothesis and when they fail to do so.The interpretation bias: a bias toward interpretations of data that favour a researcher’s theory, both when the null hypothesis is statistically rejected and when not.This bias entails that, regardless of how data turn out, the theory whose predictions are being tested is artificially buffered from falsification.The ultimate consequence is an increased risk of reporting false positives and disregarding true negatives, and so drawing incorrect conclusions about human psychology.The research bias underlying the file-drawer problem in no way depend on unscrupulous motives. The knowledge system that constitutes a science such as psychology can be roughly divided into two types of belief:Theory-relevant beliefsConcern the theoretical mechanisms that produce behaviourMethod-relevant beliefsConcern the procedures through which data are produced, measured and analysedIn any empirical test of a hypothesis, interpretation of the resulting data depends on both theory-relevant and method-relevant beliefs, as both types of belief are required to bring the hypothesis to...