Scientific political correctness is anathema here. Mainstream science's response to my collections has been remarkably favorable despite my obvious iconoclastic tendencies. This reviewer apparently forgot about that tiny, esoteric advance of Mercury's perihelion that resisted explanation until Einstein came along. Also troubling have been warnings by more than one reviewer that undergraduates should not be exposed to my books lest the image of science be tarnished. I began this Preface by warning against expecting anything profound to emerge from the simple process of collecting anomalies and curiosities.
Data collection is, after all, only one part of the scientific process.
My purpose has been to keep the data base as valuefree as possible. It is this value-free aspect of the Catalog of Anomalies plus the eclectic nature of my search that makes my endeavor not only entertaining but liberating. Unless you have been comatose the past several years, you must know that the entire outlook of science is in flux. My view is that anomaly research, while not science per se, has the potential to destabilize paradigms and accelerate scientific change. Anomaly research also transcends current scientific currency by celebrating bizarre and incongruous facets of nature, such as coincidence and seriality.