12 quotes
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987)
All models are wrong; some models are useful.
Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987)
The penalty for scientific irrelevance is, of course, that the statistician's work is ignored by the scientific community.
Science and Statistics (1976)
A man in daily muddy contact with field experiments could not be expected to have much faith in any direct assumption of independently distributed normal errors.
Science and Statistics (1976)
Statistical criteria should (1) be sensitive to change in the specific factors tested, (2) be insensitive to changes, of a magnitude likely to occur in practice, in extraneous factors.
G.E.P Box (1955)
All models are wrong, but some are useful
The researcher hoping to break new ground in the theory of experimental design should involve himself in the design of actual experiments. The investigator who hopes to revolutionize decision theory should observe and take part in the making of important decisions.
Science and Statistics (1976)
One important idea is that science is a means whereby learning is achieved, not by mere theoretical speculation on the one hand, nor by the undirected accumulation of practical facts on the other, but rather by a motivated iteration between theory and practice.
Science and Statistics (1976)
...the statistician knows...that in nature there never was a normal distribution, there never was a straight line, yet with normal and linear assumptions, known to be false, he can often derive results which match, to a useful approximation, those found in the real world.
For the theory-practice iteration to work, the scientist must be, as it were, mentally ambidextrous; fascinated equally on the one hand by possible meanings, theories, and tentative models to be induced from data and the practical reality of the real world, and on the other with the factual implications deducible from tentative theories, models and hypotheses.
Science and Statistics (1976)
Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a "correct" one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity.
Science and Statistics (1976)