Nature Includes Real Anomalies

The rise of organic deviations from the cosmic flow

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“What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet

In that famous speech from Hamlet, Shakespeare suggests that personhood is God’s or nature’s crowning achievement, although depressed Hamlet there praises us only ironically, saying next, “and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me…”

Still, this pride in our abilities and accomplishments has given rise to countless religions that sing our praises by projecting our qualities onto nature’s presumed source. We’re supposed to be special because of our miraculous origin and maker. We alone derive from supernature.

But if we assume there’s no such origin or divine maker, can we still say anything is really special in nature? Can nature include anomalies?

There’s a well-understood subjective sense of “anomaly” that the historian and philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, explained in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn distinguished between normal and revolutionary science. Normal scientists are beholden to a…