Ben: My recollection is that it was an answer to a question he received from the audience at a (JSM? Gordon Conference? Other ...?) presentation. For obvious reasons, it stuck with me, but I can't do better than that. I'm pretty sure it was in the mid to late 1990's when John Tukey was still alive, because I remember thinking about George's reply in light of Tukey's pioneering efforts to raise the profile of statistical graphics, which had fallen into relative disfavor during the 1960's - 1980's first wave of statistical software development (contrary views welcome!). Tukey's work and hi-res graphics software changed all that of course!
BTW, another favorite Box quote, which I know I heard in a class from him in the 70's at U of W (he may have said/written it elsewhere, too) that deserves to be remembered was: "The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning process." Best, Bert On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Ben Bolker <bbol...@gmail.com> wrote: > Bert Gunter <gunter.berton <at> gene.com> writes: > >> >> (Sorry, failed to cc the list) >> >> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:11 PM, Bert Gunter <bgunter <at> gene.com> wrote: >> > > [snip] > >> >> But quoting George Box (from a long time ago) on the same sort of >> query for a much different problem: "Well, of course the first thing >> to do is graph the hell out of it." > > Great quote. Do you have a source for this, or is it anecdotal > (I'd still use it, but having an attribution would be wonderful)? > Googling '"graph the hell out of it" box' > mostly comes up with this post ... > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. -- Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics Internal Contact Info: Phone: 467-7374 Website: http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
