Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.

Despite advances in genetic testing, the best way to predict how tall a child will grow is a Victorian-era method.

In 1886, Sir Francis Galton developed a way to forecast height based simply on averaging the tallness of both parents and adjusting for sex and age. Even today, when genetic testing can reveal physical traits like eye and hair color, this formula is 10 times more accurate than attempts to predict height by examining gene variation.

Scientists believe this is because most of the genetic variants that are linked to height have yet to be discovered.

Now that Galton has been vindicated, expect other Victorian-era perspectives on children to be reexamined -- such as the theory that they are wicked fallen spirits.

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