ABSTRACT
Social science is not a predictive discipline. Indeed, its detractors can draw on a wealth of failed prophecies that have been offered, sometimes tentatively, but sometimes with misplaced certainty by the members of a whole range of social science disciplines. However, it can be helpful to recognise that some variables have a tendency-even a probability-of affecting other variables in a more or less regular manner. When anticipating change, it would be foolhardy not to consider such variables and alert ourselves to some of the possibilities of what the future might bring about. In other words, social science is capable of demonstrating that some variables have been more likely (or less likely) to vary (directly or indirectly) with other variables in the past and, although such relationships cannot be anticipated with the degree of certainty with which we anticipate that the sun will rise in the east each morning, we may conclude that certain expectations are, minimally, worth entertaining.
