George E. P. Box Quotes

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

All models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind.

Statisticians, like artists, have the bad habit of falling in love with their models.

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

The only way to know how a complex system will behave-after you modify it-is to modify it and see how it behaves.

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.

Discovering the unexpected is more important than confirming the known.

The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning process.

To find out what happens to a system when you interfere with it you have to interfere with it (not just passively observe it).

The management system which makes only a pretense of valuing employee involvement and encouraging employee empowerment merely breeds cynicism.

Management must provide employees with tools that will enable them to do their jobs better, and with encouragement to use these tools. In particular, they must collect data.

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful