Human growth data analyses and statistics: The 4th Gülpe International Student Summer School

Michael Hermanussen; Detlef Groth; Christiane Scheffler

doi:10.52905/hbph2021.3.29

Authors

Michael Hermanussen Aschauhof, 24340 Eckernförde – Altenhof, Germany http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4037-1597
Detlef Groth University of Potsdam, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9441-3978
Christiane Scheffler University of Potsdam, Human Biology, 14469 Potsdam, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1954-7578

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2021.3.29

Keywords:

Just so stories, Summer Schools, questioning solutions, repetition

Abstract

Students learn by repetition. Repetition is essential, but repetition needs questioning, and questioning the repertoire belongs to the essential tasks of student education. Guiding students to questioning was and is our prime motive to offer our International Student Summer Schools. The data were critically discussed among the students, in the twilight of Just So Stories, common knowledge, and prompted questioning of contemporary solutions. For these schools, the students bring their own data, carry their preliminary concepts, and in group discussions, they may have to challenge these concepts. Catch-up growth is known to affect long bone growth, but different opinions exist to what extent it also affects body proportions. Skeletal age and dental development are considered appropriate measures of maturation, but it appears that both system develop independently and are regulated by different mechanisms. Body weight distributions are assumed to be skewed, yet, historic data disproved this assumption. Many discussions focused on current ideas of global growth standards as a common yardstick for all populations world-wide, with new statistical tools being developed including network reconstruction and evaluation of the reconstructs to determine the confidence of graph prediction methods.

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