Regress-History.txt Sender: Stat-l Discussion List From: "David C. Howell" Subject: Re: origin of term "regression" >Does anyone know the origin of the word "regression" as it applies >to linear regression. Does it have any connection to "regression" >as in regression to the mean? Yes. To quote from Draper and Smith (2nd ed., p. 4) "It appears that Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) a well-known British anthropologist and meteorologist was responsible for the introduction of the word 'regression.' Originally he used the term 'reversion' in an unpublished address 'Typical laws of heredity in man' to the Rogal Institution in February 9, 1877. The later term 'regression' appears in his Presidential address made before Section H of the British Association at Aberdeen, 1885, printed in Nature, Sept. 1885, 507-510, and also in a paper 'Regression towards mediocrity in hereditary stature,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 15, 246-263. In the latter, Galton reports on his initial discovery (p. 246) that the offspring of seeds 'did NOT tend to resemble their parent seeds in size, but to be always more mediocre (i.e. more average) than they--to be smaller than the parents if parents were large; to be larger than parents if parents were small... The experiments showed further that the mean filial regression toward mediocrity was directly proportional to the parental deviation from it.'" That may be more than you asked for. Dave Howell _________________________________________________________________ David C. Howell / Psychology / John Dewey Hall Univ. of Vermont David.Howell@uvm.edu _________________________________________________________________