“All Models Are Wrong” Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

Georgi Georgiev
Nov 5 · 4 min read

Extreme skeptics and epistemic nihilists often misquote the phrase “All Models Are Wrong” as supporting their claim that nothing can be learned from modelling our environment and to claim people are helpless in the face of the complexity of Nature. This article explains why they are wrong in doing so.

What George Box actually said?

Prominent 20-th century statistician George Box is often quoted as saying “All Models Are Wrong” or sometimes, a bit more correctly: “All models are…

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Georgi Georgiev

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Data junkie and optimizer by calling. Author of “Statistical Methods in Online A/B Testing”. Founder of Analytics-Toolkit.com.

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