&quot;<i>New York University economist Paul Romer recently complained about how economists use math as a tool of rhetoric instead of a tool to understand the world.</i>&quot;<p>It&#x27;s possible to love numbers and <i>still</i> not be interested in empirical data. One thing you may notice about much raw economic data is that it was selected because (a) it was easy to collect, or (b) it gives &quot;reasonable results&quot; according to the accepted theory.<p>See also <i>How To Lie With Statistics</i>.