Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
— George E. P. Box, Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, 1987
A favorite quote among statisticians.
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
— George E. P. Box, Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, 1987
A favorite quote among statisticians.
Actual quote:
“Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong they have to be to not be useful”
This saying is over-used. See a great discussion of it on the House of Stones blog:
http://houseofstones.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/yes-all-models-are-wrongthat-totally-misses-the-point/
House of Stones just put up another discussion that uses a simulation to illustrate some points from its previous post on models: http://houseofstones.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/surveys-assumptions-and-the-need-for-data-collection-alternatives/