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Information and IdeasVery hardInference about replication failures

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Replication failures are not spread evenly across science: they cluster in fields where a researcher must make many defensible judgment calls — which participants to exclude, which of several measures to emphasize, when to stop collecting data. Each call can be made honestly and still, in aggregate, tilt a result toward significance. This pattern suggests that ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. A. many irreproducible results may arise from flexible methods rather than from dishonesty.Correct
  2. B. fields with strict procedures produce unimportant findings.
  3. C. researchers who cannot replicate a study have usually made an error.
  4. D. fraud is the leading cause of failed replications.

Answer: A. many irreproducible results may arise from flexible methods rather than from dishonesty.

Replication failures cluster where methods leave many defensible choices, and honest choices can still steer results — pointing to flexibility, not dishonesty, as the driver.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. fields with strict procedures produce unimportant findings.
The text never weighs the importance of findings in strict-procedure fields.
C. researchers who cannot replicate a study have usually made an error.
The text locates the problem in the original studies' flexibility, not in the replicators' competence.
D. fraud is the leading cause of failed replications.
The text explicitly offers the flexibility account as an alternative to invoking fraud.

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