human genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in Human, human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, populatio ...

the midparent value of a trait is defined as the

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of the trait value of the father and a scaled version of that of the mother. This value can be used in a study to analyze the

data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more table (database), database tables, where every column (database), column of a table represents a particular Variable (computer sci ...

without heeding sex effects. Studying quantitative traits in

heritability Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of Animal husbandry, breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of ''variation'' in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. T ...

studies may be complicated by

sex differences Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecious species, which consi ...

observed for the trait. Well-known examples include studies of humans' height, whose midparent value ''h''_''mp'' is given by: :

h_=\frac

where ''h''_''f'' is the father's height, and ''h''_''m'' the mother's. The

coefficient In mathematics, a coefficient is a Factor (arithmetic), multiplicative factor involved in some Summand, term of a polynomial, a series (mathematics), series, or any other type of expression (mathematics), expression. It may be a Dimensionless qu ...

1.08 serves as a

scaling factor In affine geometry, uniform scaling (or isotropic scaling) is a linear transformation that enlarges (increases) or shrinks (diminishes) objects by a '' scale factor'' that is the same in all directions ( isotropically). The result of uniform sc ...

. After the 1.08 scaling, the mean of the mother's height is the same as that of the father's, and the variance is closer to the father's; in this way, sex difference can be ignored.

References

Genetics {{Genetics-stub