When I was a
college student, I took a "
Methods in Social Research" course. One of the first things that we were presented with was the
proposition that the
purpose of
social research was "to
understand,
predict, and
control human behavior."
Fortunately, our professor encouraged us to develop a healthy skepticism about this. Most days, I would settle for being able to understand human behavior . Never mind about being about to predict or control it.