Regression to the mean and linear regression
Regresión a la media y regresión lineal
- Date
- 1886 · confidence high
- Place
- London, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Francis Galton
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Studying the heights of parents and children, Galton observed that the children of very tall or very short parents tended to move toward the average, a phenomenon he called 'regression toward the mean' that gave the statistical method of linear regression its name. He drew on the least-squares method of Legendre (1805) and Gauss (1809), but gave it a new statistical interpretation.
What it led to
- Spread of the method by Adolphe Quetelet in the social sciences
- Linear regression as a fundamental statistical tool
Built on
- Least-squares method of Legendre and Gauss