Ann Loraine wrote: > I'm looking for Pearson's father and son height data. > ........... It's a data set that is used to teach Pearson's > correlation coefficient in a popular statistics textbook - "Statistics" > by Freedman, Pisani, et al. > > It contains over a thousand measurements of son's and their father's > heights. > > I would like to find it in electronic form so that I can use it to > prepare figures and examples for a lecture. > > If anyone knows where I could find it, please let me know. I've done a > few Google searches but haven't had any luck so far. I also used the > data() command to look through R's built-in data sets and couldn't find > it. Any suggestions would be most welcome!
I believe that you have been searching under the wrong name. The data are most closely associated with Galton (the bloke to whom the word ``regression'' is due) rather than with Pearson. A search on Galton height led me immediately to http://wiener.math.csi.cuny.edu/UsingR/Data/galton.html where the data appear to be readily available. I ***presume*** that these are the data you seek, although there are only 930 observations, not ``over a thousand''. (Close, but!) The data are given to a limited accurracy, which induces a strangely grid-like appearance when they are plotted, but that is presumably the nature of this data set. They were apparently taken from a table prepared by Galton. Values which were originally given in Galton's table as ``>= 73.7'' or ``<= 61.7'' are truncated to their respective bounds. One thing that puzzles me: The documentation says that the data pertain to 928 children, yet there are 930 data points. (????) I can't find an explanation in the documentation. Maybe I'm just blind. Or thick. cheers, Rolf Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html