Editing Cyril Burt (section)

==Scientific misconduct==
Burt published numerous articles and books on a host of topics ranging from [[psychometrics]] through [[philosophy of science]] to [[parapsychology]]. It is his research in [[quantitative genetics|behaviour genetics]], most notably in studying the heritability of intelligence (as measured in IQ tests) using [[twin study|twin studies]], that has created the most controversy, frequently referred to as "the Burt Affair."<ref>
{{cite web
  | last =Plucker
  | first =Jonathan
  | title =The Cyril Burt Affair
  | work =Human Intelligence
  | publisher =Indiana University
  | url =http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/burtaffair.shtml
  | access-date = 16 May 2018 }}
{{cite journal
  | last = Samelson
  | first =F.
  | title = What to do about fraud charges in science; or, will the Burt affair ever end?
  | journal = Genetica
  | volume = 99
  | issue = 2–3
  | pages = 145–51
  | year=  1997
  | doi =10.1023/A:1018302319394
  | pmid = 9463070 | s2cid =23231496
 }}<!--| access-date = July 2007-->
{{cite journal
  | author = Thomas J. Bouchard
  | author2 = Donald D. Dorfman
  | name-list-style = amp
  | title = Two Views of The Bell Curve
  | journal =Contemporary Psychology
  | volume =40
  | issue =5
  |date=May 1995
  | url = http://felix.unife.it/Root/d-Mensa-files/d-Intelligence/t-Bell-curve-reviews
  | access-date = 16 May 2018}}
</ref><ref>Joynson, R. B. (1989). The Burt Affair. London: Routledge.</ref><ref>Fletcher, Ronald (1991). ''Science, Ideology and the Media: The Cyril Burt Scandal''. New Brunswick, US: Transaction Publishers.</ref><ref>Mackintosh, N. J. (1995). ''Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed? Oxford'' Oxford University Press.</ref>

Shortly after Burt died it became known that all of his notes and records had been burnt, and he was accused of [[scientific misconduct|falsifying]] research data. From the late 1970s, it has been generally accepted that "he had fabricated some of the data, though some of his earlier work remained unaffected by this revelation."<ref name="Encyclopedias" /> This was due in large part to research by [[Oliver Gillie]] (1976) and [[Leon Kamin]] (1974).<ref>[[Leon Kamin|Kamin, L. J.]] (1974). ''[[The Science and Politics of IQ]]''. Potomac, Maryland: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.</ref><ref>Gillie, O. (24 October 1976). ''Crucial data was faked by eminent psychologist.'' London: Sunday Times.</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Gillie | first1 = O | year = 1977 | title = Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research on Heritability of Intelligence, Part I? | journal = The Phi Delta Kappan | volume = 58 | issue = 6| pages = 469–471 }}</ref>

The 2007 ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' noted it is widely acknowledged that his later work was flawed and many academics agree that data were falsified, though his earlier work is generally accepted as valid.<ref name=Encyclopedias>[http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9358363/Sir-Cyril-Burt "Sir Cyril Burt."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208093254/http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9358363/Sir-Cyril-Burt |date=8 December 2007 }}  Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Britannica Concise Encyclopædia. 19 April 2007. [http://www.bartleby.com/65/bu/Burt-Cyr.html "Burt, Cyril Lodowic"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109002413/http://www.bartleby.com/65/bu/Burt-Cyr.html |date=9 January 2009 }} The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2005.</ref>

The possibility of fabrication was first brought to the attention of the scientific community when Kamin noticed that Burt's correlation coefficients of [[Twin#Monozygotic twins|monozygotic]] and [[Twin#Dizygotic twins|dizygotic]] twins' IQ scores were the same to three decimal places, across articles – even when new data were twice added to the sample of twins. [[Leslie Hearnshaw]], a close friend of Burt and his official biographer, concluded after examining the criticisms that most of Burt's data from after World War II were unreliable or fraudulent.<ref>Hearnshaw, L.S. (1979). ''Cyril Burt: Psychologist''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.</ref> [[William H. Tucker (psychologist)|William H. Tucker]] argued in a 1997 article that: "A comparison of his twin sample with that from other well documented studies, however, leaves little doubt that he committed fraud."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Tucker | first1 = William H | year = 1997 | title = Re-reconsidering Burt: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt | journal = Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences | volume = 33 | issue = 2| pages = 145–162 | doi=10.1002/(sici)1520-6696(199721)33:2<145::aid-jhbs6>3.3.co;2-g| pmid = 9149386 }}</ref>

Two other psychologists [[Arthur Jensen]] and [[J. Philippe Rushton]], themselves involved in controversy for their views on race,<ref name="Jensen">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/science/arthur-r-jensen-who-set-off-debate-on-iq-dies.html|title=Arthur R. Jensen Dies at 89; Set Off Debate About I.Q. |quote=Arthur R. Jensen, an educational psychologist who ignited an international firestorm with a 1969 article suggesting that the gap in intelligence-test scores between black and white students might be rooted in genetic differences between the races ...|date=1 November 2012|newspaper=The New York Times |last1=Fox |first1=Margalit }}</ref><ref>See, for example:
*{{cite journal|last=Graves|first=J. L.|author-link=Joseph L. Graves|title=What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory|journal=Anthropological Theory|volume=2|issue=2|year=2002|pages=131–154|issn=1463-4996|doi=10.1177/1469962002002002627|s2cid=144377864}}
*{{cite journal |first=C. Loring |last=Brace |author-link=C. Loring Brace|title=Review: Racialism and Racist Agendas |journal=American Anthropologist |series=New Series |volume=98 |issue=1 |pages=176–177 |date=March 1996 |jstor=682972 |doi=10.1525/aa.1996.98.1.02a00250}}
*Francisco Gil-White, [http://www.hirhome.com/rr/rrchap10.htm Resurrecting Racism, Chapter 10] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120618042900/http://www.hirhome.com/rr/rrchap10.htm |date=18 June 2012 }}
*{{cite journal|last1=Anderson|first1=Judith L.|s2cid=54854642|title=Rushton's racial comparisons: An ecological critique of theory and method.|journal=Canadian Psychology|volume=32|issue=1|year=1991|pages=51–62|issn=1878-7304|doi=10.1037/h0078956}}
*Douglas Wahlsten (2001) [https://web.archive.org/web/20060226020150/http://www.cjsonline.ca/articles/wahlsten.html Book Review of Race, Evolution and Behavior]
*{{cite book | last = Leslie | first = Charles | title = New Horizons in Medical Anthropology | publisher = Routledge | location = New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 978-0-415-27793-8 |page=17}}
*{{cite book | last = Kuznar | first = Lawrence | title = Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology | publisher = AltaMira Press | location = Walnut Creek | year = 1997 | isbn = 978-0-7619-9114-4 |page=104}}</ref> have claimed that the contentious correlations reported by Burt are in line with the correlations found in other twin studies.<ref name="Rushton 1994"/><ref name="miele">Miele, Frank (2002). ''Intelligence, Race, And Genetics: Conversations with Arthur R. Jensen'', pp. 99–103. Oxford: Westview Press; {{ISBN|0-8133-4274-0}}</ref>

Rushton (1997) wrote that five different studies on twins reared apart by independent researchers corroborated Cyril Burt's findings and had given almost the same heritability estimate (average estimate 0.75 vs. 0.77 by Burt).<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Rushton | first1 = J. P. | year = 1997 | title = Race, Intelligence, And The Brain | url = http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Gould.pdf | journal = Personality and Individual Differences | volume = 23 | pages = 169–180 | doi = 10.1016/s0191-8869(97)80984-1 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050310013515/http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Gould.pdf | archive-date = 10 March 2005}}</ref> Jensen argued that "[n]o one with any statistical sophistication, and Burt had plenty, would report exactly the same correlation, 0.77, three times in succession if he were trying to fake the data."<ref name="miele"/> Burt's statistical sophistication was, however, called into question by his student Charlotte Banks, who in a foreword to Burt's last book, published posthumously, wrote that he combined samples gathered from schoolchildren in different earlier years in his later papers without comment. A paper Burt published in 1943, Burt states an average IQ of 153.2 for the parents in the higher professional or administrative classes, at a time when there were no standardised IQ tests for adults in the upper ranges of IQ. In 1961, Burt revised this figure to 139.7 and, in other papers, noted that he had arrived at such figures by "assessment", or guesswork, rather than testing.<ref name="Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research">{{cite journal | last1 = Gillie | first1 = O | year = 1977 | title = Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research on Heritability of Intelligence? Part 1 | journal = The Phi Delta Kappan | volume = 58 | issue = 6| page = 470 }}</ref>

According to [[Earl B. Hunt]], it may never be found out whether Burt was intentionally fraudulent or merely careless. Noting that other studies on the heritability of IQ have produced results very similar to those of Burt's, Hunt argues that Burt did not harm science in the narrow sense of misleading scientists with false results, but that in the broader sense science in general and behaviour genetics in particular were profoundly harmed by the Burt Affair, leading to a general rejection of genetic studies of intelligence and a drying up of funding for such studies.<ref>Hunt, Earl (2011). ''Human Intelligence''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 234–235.</ref>

Gillie's 1976 article in ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', reprinted in The Phi Delta Kappan in 1977, summarised attempts to trace two of Burt's supposed collaborators, Margaret Howard and J. Conway. Publications attributed to these two were published in a journal edited by Burt between 1952 and 1959, including a joint paper of Burt and Howard,<ref>Burt, C., & Howard, M. (1956). The multifactorial theory of inheritance and its application to intelligence. ''British Journal of Statistical Psychology'', 9, pp. 95–131.</ref> remarkable as one of the few, if not the only, research paper not authored solely by Burt.<ref name="Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research"/> The papers in the names of Howard or Conway were published after Burt's retirement from University College although their affiliations were said to be with University College, Howard's specifically with its Psychology Department. No-one with these names was registered as a member of staff or student at University College between 1914 and 1976, or in any other institution within the [[University of London]], and its Psychology Department could not trace either of them. Between 1952 and 1959, Burt lived in London and had two associates, Charlotte Banks and Gertrude Keir, neither of who ever met Howard or Conway. Although they suggested to Gillie that Burt may have corresponded with the two, there was no trace of any such correspondence in Burt's papers. Burt's housekeeper from 1950 recalled to Gillie that she had questioned Burt on why he had written papers in the names of Howard and Conway; his response was that they had done the research and should be credited. He explained their absence and lack of contact by adding that both had emigrated and he had lost their addresses. Based on his investigation, Gillie considered it likely that neither Howard nor Conway existed, but were a fantasy of the ageing Burt himself.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Gillie | first1 = O | year = 1977 | title = Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research on Heritability of Intelligence? Part I | journal = The Phi Delta Kappan | volume = 58 | issue = 6| page = 470 }}</ref>

Arthur Jensen was given the opportunity to respond to Gillie's article in the same issue of the same journal, and described the claims as libellous, without evidence and driven by opposition to Burt's theories. However, he does not address the central issue, that Burt wrote scientific papers and published them as editor of a journal under false names and without the consent of the supposed authors.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Jensen | first1 = A | year = 1977 | title = Did Sir Cyril Burt Fake His Research on Heritability of Intelligence? Part II | journal = The Phi Delta Kappan | volume = 58 | issue = 6| pages = 491–492 }}</ref>

In response to articles by Fletcher, claiming that his biography of Burt and attacks by others were motivated by ideological or political malice, Hernshaw added to Gillie's claims by stating that Burt's detailed records of visitors contained no records of visits by Howard or Conway in the years they were supposed to have collaborated with him on collecting and testing 32 pairs of separated monozygotic twins, that his papers contained no correspondence with or written material from them, and that no one close to Burt had met them. He added that testing separated twins was expensive: Burt had no research funds to pay research workers and his own finances were too stretched to pay for it himself. Further, he instanced two other example of what he terms Burt's deviousness ignored by Fletcher. The first was Burt's falsification of the early history of factorial analysis and his untruthful claim to have been the first to use that technique. The second was that Burt could not have obtained the results on the declining levels of scholastic attainments in the 1950s and 1960s that he claimed to have. Finally, Hernshaw claimed that Burt's failings in his years of retirement went far beyond carelessness.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hernshaw | first1 = L | year = 1992 | title = Burt Redivivus| journal = The Psychologist | volume = 5 | issue = 4| pages = 169–170 }}</ref>

In his 1991 book, Fletcher questioned Gillie's claim of the lack of independent articles published by Howard or Conway in scientific journals other than the ''Journal of Statistical Psychology'' edited by Burt, claiming Howard was also said to be mentioned in the membership list of the British Psychological Society, John Cohen was said to have remembered her well during the 1930s,<ref>Fletcher, Ronald (1991). ''Science, Ideology & the Media: The Cyril Burt Scandal''. New Brunswick, N J: Transaction Publishers, p. 392.</ref> and Donald MacRae had personally received an article from her in 1949 and 1950. According to Ronald Fletcher, there is documentary evidence of the existence of Conway {{citation needed|date=September 2018}}. Other writers have suggested that Howard and Conway may have existed, but that Burt had simply used their names to support his research, as he had been shown to have done with another named so-called researcher.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://drgeoffnutrition.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/sir-cyril-burt-1883-1971-and-the-heritability-of-intelligence-debate/ | title=Sir Cyril Burt (1883–1971) and the heritability of intelligence debate| date=24 May 2016}}</ref>

Robert Joynson (in 1989) and Ronald Fletcher (in 1991) published books in support of Burt. However Joynson accepted that Burt frequently used assumed names to publish (in the journal Burt edited, the Journal of Statistical Psychology) papers that Burt had written himself: the names he used included those of Howard and Conway.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Fancher|first=Raymond|title=Fixing it For Heredity|pages=19–20|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v11/n21/raymond-fancher/fixing-it-for-heredity|newspaper=London Review of Books|access-date=7 December 2012|date=9 November 1989}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Science, Ideology and the Media|url=https://archive.org/details/scienceideologyt00flet|url-access=registration|author=Fletcher, Ronald|year=1991|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=9780887383762}}</ref> Burt's defenders have claimed that everyone knew that, after his retirement, Burt's data was flawed and that he published articles under pseudonyms, adding that the British Psychological Society could have stopped this if it had violated accepted ethical norms of the time.<ref>L. J. Cronbach (1979), Hearnshaw on Burt, ''Science'', Vol. 206, p. 1392</ref> However, although it is clear that some individual members of the British Psychological Society were aware of Burt's questionable conduct, the reason why he was not censured were as likely to be that it would have been in bad taste to call such a great man to public account, a fault of a profession and its members that could tolerate at the time, and apologise later, for Burt's behaviour.<ref>C. Karier (1980). "In Praise of Great Men": essay review of Cyril Burt, Psychologist. ''History of Education Quarterly'', Vol. 20, No. 4, p. 481.</ref>

[[Nicholas Mackintosh]] edited ''Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed?'', which was presented by the publisher as arguing that "his defenders have sometimes, but by no means always, been correct, and that his critics have often jumped to hasty conclusions. In their haste, however, these critics have missed crucial evidence that is not easily reconciled with Burt's total innocence, leaving the perception that both the defence and prosecution cases are seriously flawed."<ref>Publisher's book description. https://www.amazon.com/Cyril-Burt-N-J-Mackintosh/dp/019852336X the first use of "critics" refers to Burt's attackers; the second use of "critics" refers to Burt's defenders, so is confusing</ref> [[W. D. Hamilton]] claimed in a 2000 book review shortly before Hamilton's death that the claims made by his detractors in the so-called "Burt Affair" had been either wrong or grossly exaggerated.<ref>{{Cite journal
 | author = W. D. Hamilton
 | author-link = W. D. Hamilton
 | title = A Review of Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations
 | doi = 10.1046/j.1469-1809.2000.6440363.x
 | journal = [[Annals of Human Genetics]]
 | volume = 64
 | issue = 4
 |date=July 2000
 | pages = 363–374
 | doi-access = free
 }}</ref>

However, Mackintosh himself, then emeritus professor of Experimental Psychology at the [[University of Cambridge]], summed up the evidence against Burt in 1995, saying that the data Burt presented were "so woefully inadequate and riddled with error", that consequently "no reliance (could) be placed on the numbers he present(ed)", and went on to confirm his agreement with Kamin's original conclusion, that Burt had fabricated his data.<ref>Mackintosh, 1995.</ref>