Cyril Burt

Born: 3 March 1883 Westminster, London
Died: 10 October 1971

Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt was an English educational psychologist who made contributions to educational psychology and statistics.
Burt is known for his studies on the heritability of IQ. Shortly after he died, his studies of inheritance and intelligence came into disrepute after evidence emerged indicating he had falsified research data. Some scholars have asserted that Burt did not commit fraud.

Work in educational psychology

In 1908, Burt took up the post of Lecturer in Psychology and Assistant Lecturer in Physiology at Liverpool University, where he was to work under the famed physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington. In 1909 Burt made use of Charles Spearman's model of general intelligence to analyse his data on the performance of schoolchildren in a battery of tests. This first research project was to define Burt's life's work in quantitative intelligence testing, eugenics, and the inheritance of intelligence. One of the conclusions in his 1909 paper was that upper-class children in private preparatory schools did better in the tests than those in the ordinary elementary schools, and that the difference was innate.

In 1913, Burt took the part-time position of a school psychologist for the London County Council (LCC), with the responsibility of picking out the 'feeble-minded' children, in accordance with the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. He notably established that girls were equal to boys in general intelligence. The post also allowed him to work in Spearman's laboratory, and received research assistants from the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, including Winifred Raphael.
Burt was much involved in the initiation of child guidance in Great Britain and his 1925 publication The Young Delinquent led to opening of the London Child Guidance Clinic in Islington in 1927. In 1924 Burt was also appointed part-time professor of educational psychology at the London Day Training College (LDTC), and carried out much of his child guidance work on the premises.

Further reading

Biographies

• Burt, C.L. (1949). An autobiographical sketch. Occupational Psychology, 23, 9-20.
• Valentine, Charles (1965). "Cyril Burt: A Biographical Sketch and Appreciation." In C. Banks, & P.L. Broadhurst, (Eds.), Stephanos: Studies in Psychology Present to Cyril Burt (pp. 11–20). London: University of London.
• Hearnshaw, L.S. (1979). Cyril Burt: Psychologist. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Also published London: Hodder and Stoughton.
• (1983) "Sir Cyril Burt". AEP (Association of Educational Psychologists) Journal, 6 (1) [Special issue].
• Fancher, R.E. (1985) The Intelligence Men: Makers of the I.Q. Controversy. New York: Norton.
• Scarr, S. (1994). "Burt, Cyril L.", in R.J. Sternberg (ed.), Encyclopedia of Intelligence (Vol. 1, pp. 231–234). New York: Macmillan.

Books by Burt

• Burt, C.L. (1917). The Distribution and Relations of Educational Abilities. London: The Campfield Press.
• Burt, C.L. (1921). Mental and Scholastic Tests. London: P. S. King. Republished and revised (4th ed.). London: Staples, (1962).
• Burt, C.L. (1923). Handbook of Tests for Use in Schools. London: P. S. King. Republished (2nd ed.) London: Staples, (1948).
• Burt, C.L. (1925). The Young Delinquent. London: University of London Press. Republished and revised (3rd ed.) London: University of London Press, (1938); (4th ed.) Bickley: University of London Press, (1944).
• Burt, C.L. (1930). The Study of the Mind. London: BBC.
• Burt, C.L. (1934). How the Mind Works. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company. Republished London: Allen & Unwin (1945).
• Burt, C.L. (1935). The Subnormal Mind. London: Oxford University Press. Republished London: Oxford University Press, (1937).
• Burt, C.L. (1937). The Backward Child. London: University of London Press. Republished (5th ed.) London: University of London Press, (1961).
• Burt, C.L. (1940). The Factors of the Mind: An Introduction to Factor Analysis in Psychology. London: University of London Press.
• Burt, C.L. (1946). Intelligence and Fertility. London.
• Burt, C.L. (1957). The Causes and Treatments of Backwardness (4th ed.). London: University of London Press.
• Burt, C.L. (1959). A Psychological Study of Typography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Burt, C.L. (1968). Psychology and Psychical Research: the Seventeenth Frederic W. H. Myers Memorial Lecture, The Society for Psychical Research.
• Burt, C.L. (1975). The Gifted Child. New York: Wiley and London: Hodder and Stoughton
• Burt, C.L. (1975). ESP and Psychology. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Edited by Anita Gregory.

Articles by Burt

• Burt, C.L. (1909). "Experimental Texts of General Intelligence," The British Journal of Psychology, 3, 94–177.
• Burt, C.L. (1915). "Mental Tests," Child Study, 8, 8–13.
• Burt, C.L. (1920). "The Definition and Diagnosis of Mental Deficiency"; "Part II," Studies in Mental Inefficiency, 1, 47–54, 69–77.
• Burt, C.L. (1920). "The Neurotic School Child," Studies in Mental Inefficiency, 4, 7–12.
• Burt, C.L. (1923). "The Causal Factors of Juvenile Crime," British Journal of Medical Psychology, 3, 1–33.
• Burt, C.L. (1923). "Delinquency and Mental Defect", British Journal of Medical Psychology, 3, 168–178.
• Burt, C.L. (1949). "Alternative Methods of Factor Analysis and their Relations to Pearson’s Method of ‘Principal Axes’," British Journal of Psychology, 2, 98–121.
• Burt, C.L. (1951). "General Psychology." In Dingle, Herbert (ed.) A Century of Science, (pp. 272-286). Hutchinson's Scientific And Technical Publications.
• Burt, C.L. (1954). "The Differentiation of Intellectual Ability," The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 24, 76–90.
• Burt, C.L. (1955). "The Evidence for the Concept of Intelligence," British Journal of Educational Psychology, 25, 158–177.
• Burt, C.L. (1958). "Definition and Scientific Method in Psychology", British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 11, 31–69.
• Burt, C.L., & Gregory, W.L. (1958). "Scientific Method in Psychology: II", British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 11, 105–128.
• Burt, C.L. (1958). "The Inheritance of Mental Ability", American Psychologist, 13, 1–15.
• Burt, C.L. (1959). "General Ability and Special Aptitudes", Educational Research, 1, 3–16.
• Burt, C.L. (1959). "The Examination at Eleven Plus", British Journal of Education Studies, 7, 99–117.
• Burt, C.L. (1960). "The Mentally Subnormal", Medical World, 93, 297–300.
• Burt, C.L. (1961). "Factor Analysis and its Neurological Basis", British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 14, 53–71.
• Burt, C.L. (1962). "Francis Galton and his Contributions to Psychology," British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 15, 1–49.
• Burt, C.L., & Williams, E.L. (1962). "The Influence of Motivation on the Results of Intelligence Tests", British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 15, 129–135.
• Burt, C.L. (1963). "Is Intelligence Distributed Normally?", British Journal of Statistical Psychology, 16(2), 175–190.
• Burt, C.L. (1966). "The Genetic Determination of Differences in Intelligence: A Study of Monozygotic Twins Reared Together and Apart," British Journal of Psychology, 57, 137–153.
• Burt, C.L. (1966). "Parapsychology and its Implications," International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 2, 363-377.
• Burt, C.L. (1968). "An Illustration of Factor Analysis". In Butcher, Harold J. Human Intelligence: Its Nature and Assessment (pp. 66–71). London: Methuen.
• Burt, C.L. (1969). "Intelligence and Heredity: Some Common Misconceptions," Irish Journal of Education, 3, 75–94.
• Burt, C.L. (1971). "Quantitative Genetics in Psychology", British Journal of Mathematical & Statistical Psychology, 24, 1–21.
• Burt, C.L. (1972). "Inheritance of General Intelligence", American Psychologist, 27, 175–190.

Readings on the Burt Affair

• Blinkhorn, S.F. (1989). "Was Burt Stitched Up?", Nature, 340:439.
• Blinkhorn, S.F. (1995). "Burt and the Early History of Factor Analysis", in N.J. Mackintosh, Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed?, Oxford University Press.
• Brace, C. Loring (2005). "Sir Cyril Burt: Scientific Fraud", in Race is a Four Lettered Word, the Genesis of the Concept, Oxford University Press.
• Butler, Brian E., & Petrulis, Jennifer (1999). "Some Further Observations Concerning Sir Cyril Burt," British Journal of Psychology, 90, 155–160.
• Cohen, John (1977). "The Detractors", Encounter, 48(3), pp. 86–89.
• Eysenck, H.J. (1977). "The Case of Sir Cyril Burt," Encounter, 48(1), pp. 19–23.
• Fletcher, Ronald (1991). Science, Ideology, and the Media. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.
• Gould, S.J. (1996). "The Real Error of Cyril Burt Factor Analysis and the Reification of Intelligence," in The Mismeasure of Man, W. W. Norton & Company.
• Hartley, James and Rooum, Donald (1983). "Sir Cyril Burt and Typography: A Re-evaluation", British Journal of Psychology, 74, 203–212.
• Jensen, Arthur R. (1977). "Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research on Heritability of Intelligence?," The Phi Delta Kappan, 58(6), pp. 471, 492.
• Jensen, Arthur R. (1978). "Sir Cyril Burt in Perspective," American Psychologist, Vol. 33(5), 499–503.
• Jensen, Arthur R. (1995). "IQ and Science: The Mysterious Burt Affair". In Mackintosh, Nicholas John (ed.), Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed? (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press), 1–12. ISBN 0-19-852336-X.
• Joynson, R.B. (1989). The Burt Affair. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01039-X.
• Lamb, Kevin (1992). "Biased Tidings: The Media and the Cyril Burt Controversy", Mankind Quarterly, 33, 203.
• Mackintosh, Nicholas (editor) (1995). Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed?. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-852336-X.
• Osborne, R.T. (1990). "Cyril Burt's Invariant Kinship Correlations," The Mankind Quarterly, 31, 163–170.
• Rowe, D., & Plomin, R. (1978). "The Burt Controversy: The Comparison of Burt's Data on IQ with Data from Other Studies", Behavior Genetics, 8, 81–83.
• Rushton, J.P. (1994). "Victim of Scientific Hoax (Cyril Burt and the Genetic IQ Controversy)" at the Wayback Machine (archived October 13, 2004), Society, 31, 40–44.
• Rushton, J.P. (2002). "New Evidence on Sir Cyril Burt: His 1964 Speech to the Association of Educational Psychologists", Intelligence, 30, 555–567.
• Tizard, Jack (1976). "Progress and Degeneration in the IQ Debate: Comments on Urbach", The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 27: 251–258.
• Tucker, W. H. (1994). "Fact and Fiction in the Discovery of Sir Cyril Burt's Flaws," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 30, 335–347.
• Tucker, W. H. (1997). "Re-reconsidering Burt: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 33(2) 145–162.
• Woolridge, Adrian (1994). Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England, c.1860-c.1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.