Some of the best theorizing comes after collecting data because then you become aware of another reality.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of data collection in understanding complex realities.
Robert J. Shiller's quote suggests that the most insightful theories emerge when one has a solid foundation of data. By gathering and analyzing information, we open ourselves up to new perspectives and truths about the world that we might not have recognized otherwise. This highlights the value of empirical evidence in enriching our understanding of various phenomena.
In practice
In a presentation on market trends, this quote can illustrate the importance of data-driven decision-making.
Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure.
Speculative markets have always been vulnerable to illusion. But seeing the folly in markets provides no clear advantage in forecasting outcomes, because changes in the force of the illusion are difficult to predict.
That's the world we live in: when it comes to economics, people have emotions; it's not like chemistry or physics.
Money management has been a profession involving a lot of fakery - people saying they can beat the market, and they really can't.
We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters - that is, the outlier events that matter the most.
If we wait until income inequality is much more severe, we will have a whole class of new superrich who will probably feel entitled to their wealth and will have the means to defend their interest. That's already gone far enough. We shouldn't let it become more extreme.
No matter how counter-intuitive it may seem, basic research has proven over and over to be the lifeline of practical advances in medicine.
There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. . . It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe. . . The impression of design is overwhelming.
DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.
The day that you stop looking - because you're content God did it - I don't need you in the lab. You're useless on the frontier of understanding the nature of the world.
Regardless of your sex, if you have elevated testosterone levels in your blood, you're more likely to think a face with a neutral expression is instead looking threatening.
Plasma seems to have the kinds of properties one would like for life. It's somewhat like liquid water--unpredictable and thus able to behave in an enormously complex fashion. It could probably carry as much information as DNA does. It has at least the potential for organizing itself in interesting ways.
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