Guessing Height by Association

Publish date: 2024-06-23
Several approaches can be used to estimate a person's height.
  • In-person estimates. Eye-witness accounts can vary wildly and, in the wrong eyes, may result in guesses that are 2-3 inches away from reality.

  • By association. If you've seen one person measured, or have extreme confidence in how tall a person is, then they can be used as a barometer in figuring out the heights of other people.

  • Object comparison. This is more complex than it appears. Due to camera angles, positions and other photographic factors, it's not something I would recommend. In recent years there are phone apps which use advanced technology to guess height, though from my experience of testing them, these are not yet the final article.

    • And then we have the Google Height Fallacy. Just because an organisation is extremely large, doesn't necessarily mean it knows everything about the height of celebrities.

    Heck, I've been running CelebHeights.com for nearly 20 years. Even I'm still learning and adjusting heights every day!

    Let's illustrate the Google Height Fallacy and use it to figure out the height of a random person by association. We'll give the subject of our height curiously a name - Glenn Cunningham.

    So our trusty and reputable sources (Google & IMDB) both inform us that actor Jack Gleeson is 1.7m (5ft 7). They've been saying this for at least a decade, so there must be some truth to it.

    Jack Gleeson HeightGoogle & IMDB.com Height Listing

    Now I happen to know a lovely lady who met Jack Gleeson in person and kindly allowed me to show her photo with him:

    Jack Gleeson HeightLady & 5ft 7 Jack

    So if Jack is 5ft 7, by my reckoning he looks almost 1.5 inches taller than her and has probably lost a 1/4 inch in posture with a little head tilt.

    Let's say at worst, Jack is 1.5 inches taller than the lovely lady. I'm pretty confident by association that she's about 5ft 5.5, based entirely on what Google & IMDB tell us about Jack's stature.

    And that brings us to Glenn, whose height we are about to solve by association.

    Now the 5ft 5 and a half lady once took a photo with Glenn, and I have it on good authority that they are both in socks and neither is standing on tip-toes. What may be lurking inside Glenn's socks is another matter. We can clearly see their postures are quite similar and ok, he's slightly closer, but it really has little effect on the height difference in this instance.

    Jack Gleeson Height5ft 5.5 Lady & 5ft 3 Glenn Cunningham

    So if she's 5ft 5.5, my eyes are certainly not deceiving me when I say with the utmost confidence that the height difference between them is about 2.5 inches.

    By association, we've figured out exactly how tall Glenn really is.

    Glenn Cunningham's Height is 5ft 3

    (by association)

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