All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful
Posted on March 4, 2007 Comments (4)
“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 Data – articles by George Box – Quotes by Dr. W. Edwards Deming
4 Responses to “All Models Are Wrong But Some Are Useful”
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February 7th, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
Many thanks. I've been looking for the source of that quote for years.
April 28th, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
[...] 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 [...]
July 13th, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
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)…
November 23rd, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
The odds of a 500 year flood don't depend on our observations or our data set. Only our estimation of the odds changes.