Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, customer focus, continual improvement, six sigma.
March 4, 2007
All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful

“All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful” -George Box

A great quote. Here is the source: George E.P. Box, Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building, page 202 of Robustness in Statistics, R.L. Launer and G.N. Wilkinson, Editors. 1979.

Related: Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Dataarticles by George BoxQuotes by Dr. W. Edwards Deming

4 Responses to “All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful”

  1. Tony Burton Says:

    Many thanks. I’ve been looking for the source of that quote for years.

  2. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data Says:

    [...] to me, relates to the concept that all models are wrong but some are useful (which I learned from George Box) and leads me to believe that measures such as turnover and sick [...]

  3. Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » 500 Year Floods Says:

    It would seem to me, in fact, actually having a 500 year flood actually increases the odds for it happening again (because the data now includes that case which had not been included before)…

  4. Erich B. Says:

    The odds of a 500 year flood don’t depend on our observations or our data set. Only our estimation of the odds changes. ;-)

Leave a Reply


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