Measurement of natural systems typically involves perturbation and interpretation. In this talk, I will discuss the implications of measurement in the context of RNA in gene expression in human cells. I will focus on measurements of RNA biology using high-throughput sequencing, which are powerful for their scale but also involve perturbations and interpretations that can influence drawn conclusions. I will discuss innovations in measurement in RNA biology that access complementary information through orthogonal approaches. Specifically, I will focus on measurements of mRNA translation through ribosome profiling or polysome profiling and associated limitations. I will also present our recent work using an RNA molecular recorder we developed to access single-molecule and biophysical properties of RNA-protein interactions in cells using long read RNA sequencing. Together, this talk will discuss advances in measurement in RNA biology towards a more complete understanding of underlying physical reality.