On the occasion of their visit to the Wilhelmspost in Bamberg, the heads of the state and national institutes for quality development in the education system from 13 German states received an introduction to the history, methodological structure and knowledge objectives of the National Educational Panel from Dr. Jutta von Maurice, scientific-administrative director of the NEPS. On this occasion, Dr. von Maurice presented the first, previously unpublished results based on the NEPS scientific-use files, i.e., data available to the scientific community, to the education researchers. Following the presentation, this broad availability of NEPS data led to a debate about whether this availability opens a gateway for arbitrariness in finding and presenting results for previously unforeseeable questions. From a strictly positivistic point of view, this objection may seem justified: theory building with the corresponding hypothesis generation should always take place before data collection. Ultimately, however, to summarize the tenor of the discussion, the epistemological opportunity to use the potential of the worldwide expertise in the field of education for the further development of educational research by providing the data generated within the framework of the NEPS study prevails.