George E. P. Box

George Edward Pelham Box (born 18 October 1919) is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin, and a pioneer in the areas of quality control, time series analysis, design of experiments and Bayesian inference. He was the son-in-law of Sir Ronald Fisher.

Quotes

• Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
  • Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces (1987), co-authored with Norman R. Draper, p. 424, ISBN 0471810339
  • Variants:
  • Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
    • Empirical Model-Building by Box and Draper, p. 74
  • ALL MODELS ARE WRONG BUT SOME ARE USEFUL
    • Section heading, page 2 of Box's paper, "Robustness in the Strategy of Scientific Model Building" (May 1979) in Robustness in Statistics: Proceedings of a Workshop (1979) edited by RL Launer and GN Wilkinson
  • All models are false but some models are useful.

• We have a large reservoir of engineers (and scientists) with a vast background of engineering know how. They need to learn statistical methods that can tap into the knowledge. Statistics used as a catalyst to engineering creation will, I believe, always result in the fastest and most economical progress…
  • Statement of 1992, quoted in Introduction to Statistical Experimental Design — What is it? Why and Where is it Useful? (2002) Johan Trygg & Svante Wold