Calibration andRegression

摘要

As a statistical term, regression originated with SirFrancis Galton (1822-1911) in his 1866 article, “Regressiontowards Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature.” Originally, Galtonused the word reversion instead of regression. Galton studiedthe relationship between parents’ heights and the heights oftheir o?spring. He studied the heights of 928 adults born to205 sets of parents. He considered the parents’ averageheights as the predictor variable x and their respectiveo?spring’s heights as the dependent variable y. He found thatunusually tall parents, i.e., taller than average (or mediocrity),tended to have children who were shorter than themselves,and parents who were shorter than average tended to havechildren taller than themselves. So, he formulated his theory“regression toward mediocrity” to represent the tendency inthe relationship between heights of parents and children.