Peter Suderman & Megan McArdle are getting married. One of my thoughts was, “How tall will their offspring be?” (assuming they are intent on producing any) I couldn’t tell Peter Suderman’s height from photographs with certainty, but he has confirmed they are the same height, 6 feet 2 inches. What sort of heights would we expect for the McSuderkinder?* Assuming 80% heritability for height, 3 inches as the standard deviation for both sexes, 5’10 and 5’4 as mean heights (male & female), and plugging into the calculator:
The highest probability of height for any male offspring: 6 feet 3.6 inches.
The highest probability of height for any female offspring: 5 feet 9.6 inches.
68.27% male offspring will be between 6 feet 0.6 inches and 6 feet 6.6 inches
68.27% female offspring will be between 5 feet 6.6 inches and 6 feet 0.6 inches
(1 standard deviation)
95.45% male offspring will be between and 5 feet 9.6 inches and 6 feet 9.6 inches
95.45% female offspring will be between 5 feet 3.6 inches and 6 feet 3.6 inches
(2 standard deviations)
In other words, there is only a 1 out of 40 chance that any given daughter will be taller than the world’s tallest female econoblogger (though I assume by the time that any such daughter realizes such a height blogging will no longer exist). Blame Peter, he’s less than 2 standard deviations above the mean….
* Or should I say the half-bloods?
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