Linear Regression is one of the most well known and well understood algorithms in statistics and machine learning. It has been around for almost 200 years. It is an attractive model because the representation is so simple. In statistics, linear regression is is a statistical method that allows to summarize and study relationships between two continuous (quantitative) variables.
The basis for this algorithm was invented by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin and an accomplished 19th century scientist. He has often been criticized for his promotion of “eugenics” (planned breeding of humans). While studying the problem of heredity – understanding how strongly the characteristics of one generation of living things manifested in the following generation, he was the first to define the linear regression slope.