Quote of the Week, October 3, 2007

From the ever-quotable Andrew Gelman comes this gem, which he calls a Folk Theorem :

When things are hard to compute, often the model doesn’t fit the data. Difficulties in computation are therefore often model problems… [When the computation isn't working] we have the duty and freedom to think about models.


From the introduction to his talk on May 14, 2007, at the Third Workshop on Monte Carlo Methods, Harvard University, 2007 .

One Comment
  1. aconnors:

    At Vinay Kashyap’s suggestion, I have moved my Provocative Corollary to Andrew Gelman’s Folk Theorem to a main post (CLICK to read the full post).

    10-03-2007, 1:30 pm
Leave a comment