> was unable to explain how an exception can confirm the rule.

Yes, it’s just some kind of apophagia of strangulation, erected into a cult.
“Exceptions in a reasonable amount only confirm that sufficient statistics have been gathered in the process of verifying the empirical rule. The absence of exceptions suggests either poor statistics, which will hurt us when we try to use this rule, or that instead of an empirical rule, relying on good correlation, we have stumbled upon some irrefutable law of nature, which lies in another weight category, which to check with statistics is as ridiculous as it is to check the law of universal gravity, dropping millions of Georgians and convincing that it has worked with each of them once again.
That is the correct formulation.
Moch on a solitary tree from the north above is the rule. Looking at the hundred trees, we will see that five mosses above from the south – it just happened to have been stronger there. This is the exception that confirms that enough statistics have been obtained for the framework of the rules.