So I know there’s been lots of discussions on the meaning of the title and it seems like remedies really into double entendres or maybe even quadruple Entendres, but after about half a decade or so of absence, I’m finally back in school finishing up my experimental psychology degree and I recently restarted control and it had me thinking about the title in a really different way. The bureau captured Dylan when they were kids but supposedly Jesse got away. However we later find out that the bureau had detailed observations and photographs and agents posing as therapists throughout Jesse‘s life. It seems pretty unlikely that they couldn’t recapture her if they wanted. Then I realized it’s the kind of unethical experimental study that psychologist would conduct if they could. One of the best indicators of nature versus nurture we have our twins studies. Whenever twins are separated at birth (in particular monozygotic but also dizygotic) we can find out how much their genetics contribute to their life and personality versus their upbringing and environment. But these are all correlational studies because we can’t just take twins and separate them and give them one a better life and see what happens. But it occurred to me that especially considering Jesse is also considered a prime candidate, I think they were using her as the control variable— The variable that is not manipulated in an experiment to see how the manipulation of the experimental variable affects the outcome. In this I think the results are pretty obvious. Their heavy manipulation of Dylan ended up being counterproductive because despite his natural abilities he was basically rendered a prisoner and unable to develop into an emotionally mature human being capable of taking on the mantle of Director. Where is Jesse was allowed to live her life without any interference but was heavily observed. And when faced with adversity, Jesse pushed out the house and thought back and although initially reluctantly, ended up taking the role of Director seriously. So I think this experimental study yielded some very informative results, that was clearly highly unethical I was only capable because of the lack of oversight of the federal Bureau of control.