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13 George E. P. Box Quotes

George E. P. Box delivers a blunt take on models, reminding you that all are wrong but some help.

George E. P. Box quotes

  1. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

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

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

  3. 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.

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

  5. The benefits provided by worker participation are twofold. Quality is improved because of the finding and fixing of a very large number of problems, but also, and perhaps equally important, moral is improved.

  6. The old-fashioned idea of a good manager is one who is supposed to know all the answers, can solve every problem himself, and can give appropriate orders to his subordinates to carry out his plans... A good modern manager is like a good coach who leads and encourages his team in never-ending quality improvement.

  7. 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.

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

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

  10. 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.

  11. Discovering the unexpected is more important than confirming the known.

  12. All models are wrong, but some are useful.