Most of our understanding of the universe relies on the assumption that if you zoom out enough, the universe is roughly the same everywhere. The axis of evil is a hot and a cold spot* on nearly opposite sides of the CMB. These spots differ enough that we don’t feel super comfortable calling them normal statistical variation. But if they are anything other than normal statistical variation, then that central assumption of cosmology falls apart, leaving us with a universe that we don’t, and possibly can’t, understand.
*hot and cold being relative to the rest of the CMB
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