Looking For The Anomaly

At the very least, we should not deny them

Photo by Tim Mossholder

Well-Founded Aversion

Our aversion to anomalies is well-founded: we generally build systems — physical or conceptual — based on plausible scenarios and expected outcomes. Edge cases are a pain. It is hard to think of them because they are rare; besides, even when we do, it is almost impossible to catch all of them. When something or someone behaves abnormally, we are bound to have to improvise. Anomalies throw us into the unknown and put experience in question: the best at answering the known questions might not be the best at figuring out problems we ignored we had. In short, anomalies mean more work.

Exceptions Don’t Prove Rules

The cheapest way to deal with deviations is to deny them. It is also the worst idea: the human obsession with denying what we don’t like continues to thrive because although the problems never disappear, they do so as far as we are concerned. Telling a lie a hundred times doesn’t make it true for anyone willing to look, but it does put many people off doing so. Thus, businesses will splash thousands on public relations and marketing campaigns while ignoring a critical issue in their model. The problem is likely to be an anomaly, something that didn’t go according to plan. Our fear that one inconsistency may dispute the paradigm…