The term regression was originally used in 1885 by Sir Francis Galton in his analysis of the relationship between the heights of children and parents.
He formulated the “law of universal regression,” which specifies that “each peculiarity in a man is shared by his kinsmen, but on average in a less degree.” (Evidently, people spoke this way in 1885.) In 1903, two statisticians, K. Pearson and A. Lee, took a random sample of 1,078 father–son pairs to examine Galton’s law (“On the Laws of Inheritance in Man, I. Inheritance of Physical Characteristics,” Biometrika 2:457–462). Their sample regression line was
Son’s height = 33.73 + .516 × Father’s height
a. Interpret the coefficients.
b. What does the regression line tell you about the heights of sons of tall fathers?
c. What does the regression line tell you about the heights of sons of short fathers?