1

Who is the creator or inventor of coefficient of determination (R-squared) ?

I know that Galton invented correlation.

1 Answers1

4

A search on JSTOR shows that this term became quickly and widely adopted in the 1920s. It has been attributed to

Wright, Sewall. 1921. Correlation and causation. Journal of Agricultural Research 20: 557-585.

Wright was one of the giants of 20th century evolutionary biology.

For a rough but readable copy online, see here

Nick Cox
  • 48,377
  • 8
  • 110
  • 156
  • Which words do you put in JSTOR? I cannot find the result by searching? THANKS – user2986288 Jul 02 '15 at 10:30
  • 1
    I searched for `"coefficient of determination"` (including quotation marks) and then looked at early references. – Nick Cox Jul 02 '15 at 10:39
  • I do not know why I cannot get the same results after searching for "coefficient of determination" and pressing "Oldest", but thank you. – user2986288 Jul 02 '15 at 10:55
  • 1
    As I said, I looked at references in what came up. I didn't say that this Wright paper is on JSTOR, as it isn't. – Nick Cox Jul 02 '15 at 10:58
  • (+1) I was performing a similar search recently. Although I didn't find Wright's paper directly, I easily came upon Bradford Smith's *Forecasting the Acreage of Cotton* in JASA (1925). Smith quotes Wright in a lengthy footnote and credits him with inventing the term. – whuber Jun 17 '17 at 19:03