He computed the average diameter of 100 seeds produced by each sweet pea plant. He founded that the smallest pea seeds had larger offspring and the largest seeds had sm aller offspring. In another study, Galton bought family records that contained the heights of 205 sets of parents and their adult children. If the parents were short their children were slightly taller, on the other hand, if the parents were tall then t he children were slightly shorter. These two experiments lead Galton to invent the word regression.
Regression is defined as the process of returning to the mean.
In both experiments the smallest peas and parents had offspring who were bigger and close r to the mean. Galton was greatly influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin. Darwin is thought to be responsible for getting Galton interested in studying the heritability of human traits. During Galton s studies and experiments he invented words such as eugenics and regression. Galton first thought that breeding two smart people would produce an even smarter person.