Whether chaos theory marks an actual paradigm shift is arguable. After all, classical physics still works very well for explaining many aspects of the observable world. Nonetheless, chaos theory marks a shift in the way we conceive order and disorder, predictability and unpredictability, and deterministic behavior and random behavior. It has had a profound influence on the way in which science is done. Nonlinear dynamics continues to be a significant area of research in the physical sciences, the life sciences, and the social sciences.56 In the humanities, the rich vein of chaos-theory applications continues to be mined, the insights offered by chaos theory providing us with new understandings of cultural, as well as natural, processes.