“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.”

— George E. P. Box

Source: Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987), p. 424,

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." by George E. P. Box?

George E. P. Box 14

British statistician 1919–2013

Related quotes

“All models are wrong; some models are useful.”

George E. P. Box (1919–2013) British statistician

For instance in George E. P. Box, William Hunter and Stuart Hunter, Statistics for Experimenters, second edition, 2005, page 440. See "All models are wrong".

“Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.”

George E. P. Box (1919–2013) British statistician

Source: Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987), p. 74

“Modeling Principle: Models are not right or wrong; they are more or less useful.”

Martin Fowler (1963) British programmer

Source: Analysis Patterns: Reusable Object Models, 1997, p. 2

“We’re all racing,” he said.
“Yeah, but some of us in the wrong direction.”

China Miéville book Iron Council

Part 6 “The Caucus Race”, chapter 20 (p. 364)
Iron Council (2004)

“As is used in connection with systems engineering, a model is a qualitative or quantitative representation of a process or endeavor that shows the effects of those factors which are significant for the purposes being considered. Modeling is the process of making a model. Although the model may not represent the actual phenomenon in all respects, it does describe the essential inputs, outputs, and internal characteristics, as well as provide an indication of environmental conditions similar to those of actual equipment.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), p. 108; As cited in: Alberto Ortiz (1992, p. 13)

“Have the climate models been successful in predicting anything? They, of course, predict substantial global warming. This is not surprising given the expressed belief of some of the model builders in the global warming hypothesis and the many parameters in the model that need to be introduced. However, the models also predict unambiguously that the atmosphere is warming faster than the surface of the earth; but all the available observational data unambiguously shows the opposite! Truth in science is always determined from observational facts. One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis. It is absolutely essential that one should be neutral and not fall in love with the hypothesis. If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing. "Truth by Assertion" is not science.”

David Douglass

http://www.gravett.org/bizarrescience/archives/003967.html
Letter to the Wall Street Journal

“Looking into it a bit, Jamie found that the model used by Wall Street to price LEAPs, the Black-Scholes option pricing model, made some strange assumptions.”

Michael Lewis book The Big Short

Source: The Big Short (2010), Chapter Five, Accidental Capitalists, p. 113

“You are wrong. The state and its existence are essential before everything else. All this preoccupation with liberty is not serious.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

[TUNISIA: No Time for Democracy, TIME, Monday, Sept. 29, 1958, 2, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821168-2,00.html, September 6, 2011]

“I say that we put all our money upon the wrong horse. ... My own conviction is strong that, unless some very essential reforms in the conduct of the government are adopted, the doom of the Turkish Empire cannot be very long postponed.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1897/jan/19/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-most#column_29 in the House of Lords (19 January 1897), expressing regret for Britain's support of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War

“We have argued at some length in another place that the mechanical equilibrium model and the organismic homeostasis models of society that have underlain most modern sociological theory have outlived their usefulness”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Society as a complex adaptive system (1968), p. 490.

“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

George E. P. Box 14

Related quotes

Related topics