https://medium.com/nextdottech/introduction-to-linear-regression-in-python-c12a072bedf0 > Linear regression is a basic predictive analytics technique that uses historical data to predict an output variable. It is popular for predictive modelling because it is easily understood and can be explained using plain English. > Linear regression models have many real-world applications in an array of industries such as economics (e.g. predicting growth), business (e.g. predicting product sales, employee performance), social science (e.g. predicting political leanings from gender or race), healthcare (e.g. predicting blood pressure levels from weight, disease onset from biological factors), and more.