Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is the researcher's workhorse f
or making inductive inferences. This method has often been challenged, has
occasionally been defended, and has persistently been used through most Of
the history of scientific psychology. This article reviews both the critici
sms of NHST and the arguments brought to its defense. The review shows that
the criticisms address the logical validity of inferences arising from NHS
T, whereas the defenses stress the pragmatic value of these inferences. The
author suggests that both critics and apologists implicitly rely on Bayesi
an assumptions. When these assumptions are made explicit, the primary chall
enge for NHST-and any system of induction- can be confronted. The challenge
is to find a solution to the question of replicability.