In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Politicians of all stripes are always in danger at looking at every problem from an abstract point of view or being briefed by officials, academics, or economists who know every science but the science of human nature.
I was always a data guy, not a theorist. Theorists can maintain total purity. The data are always messy.
Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.
I don't like to move abstract theoretical policies that, on a white paper, sound good. If I wanted to do that, I'd be a professor.
The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
Basic research is very useful, but it should be more geared toward application than it was before.
Policy is about real people and real stories, and sometimes we forget that.
A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.
