I'm trying to reconcile these statements, one about and one by U of Chicago's recent Nobel prize winner.

First, from the Chicago Tribune:

Fama is an inveterate researcher who is known for constantly testing the same theory he developed in the 1960s.  "Rather than being a proponent of the efficient market theory, he was and is far more interested in testing that idea," said Alexi Savov, an assistant professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, who studied under both Fama and Hansen at U. of C. "He's a data-driven person who really wants to know the way things really are, versus a proponent. He's much more interested in the data than the theory."

And, from the New York Times:

Five years [after Schiller predicted a housing crash], with home prices well on the way to fulfilling Mr. Shiller’s prediction, the economist Eugene F. Fama said he still did not believe there had been a bubble.  “I don’t even know what a bubble means,” said Mr. Fama, the author of the theory that asset prices perfectly reflect all available information. “These words have become popular. I don’t think they have any meaning.”