Compare Quote by Anatol Rapoport

There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing…

— Brian Schmidt

There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may…

— Karl Popper

Model building is the art of selecting those aspects of a process that are relevant to the question being asked. As with any art,…

— John Henry Holland

It is clear that the building of models is not a purely mechanical process but requires skill of a high order - not merely…

— Kenneth E. Boulding

A model's robustness depends on how often it gets tried out and tweaked based on data and its performance.

— Zeynep Tufekci

In so far as such a theory is empirically correct it will also tell us what empirical facts it should be possible to observe…

— Talcott Parsons

Models can easily become so complex that they are impenetrable, unexaminable, and virtually unalterable.

— Donella Meadows

It's also a reasonable scientific program to look at the dynamics of the standard model and to try to prove from that dynamics that…

— Seth Lloyd

It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.

— William Whewell

A theory may be so rich in descriptive possibilities that it can be made to fit any data.

— Phillip Johnson-Laird

A model is a good model if first it interprets a wide range of observations in terms of a simple and elegant model, and…

— Stephen Hawking

To the extent that you can find ways where you're making predictions, there's no substitute for testing yourself on real-world situations that you don't…

— Nate Silver