NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Sir Cyril Burt Sir Cyril Burt - in full Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt - was born on March 3, 1883 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. He was the British psychologist known for his development of factor analysis in psychological testing and for his detailed studies of the effect of heredity on peoples intelligence and behaviour. Sir Cyril Burt studied at the universities of Oxford and Wurzburg before he became the first educational psychologist. He was appointed to this position by a governmental body in Britain in 1913. This was a position that led to the first child-guidance clinic creation in England. Burt joined the faculty of the University of London and then served as professor of psychology at University College in London until his retirement.
However, he continued to do research work after his retirement. Moreover, he was the first psychologist to be knighted. It happened in 1946. Burt published his experimental tests on general intelligence in 1909. In these works he used factor analysis to determine the kinds of factors in psychological testing. According to Burt, factor analysis consists of the extraction of small numbers of independent factors from a large group of inter correlated variates.
This method of factor analysis he fully presented in his work titled The Factors of the Mind (1940). Burt's studies convinced him that intelligence possessed hereditary traits in the origin. However, environmental and social factors could play a secondary role in the development of intellect. Starting from the 1940 s, he published his thorough studies, which displayed that levels of intelligence could be correlated with levels of occupation among groups of tested subjects.
Such levels of intelligence were transmitted to the offspring's of these subjects. Burt made such a statement about general intelligence in one of his works: "[intelligence] denotes, first of all, a quality that is intellectual and not emotional or moral: in measuring it we try to rule out the effects of the child's zeal, interest, industry... Secondly, it denotes a capacity that enters into everything the child says or does or thinks; any want of intelligence will therefore be revealed to some degree in almost all that he attempts Thirdly, intelligence is by definition an innate capacity: hence a lack of it is not necessarily proved by a lack of educational knowledge or skill" (Burt, 1957, p. 64 - 65). It seems that Burt tried to demonstrate that mainly innate and hereditary levels of intelligence determined occupational levels.
Remarkable anomalies in some of Burt's test data made some scientists reexamine his statistical methods after his death. They made a striking conclusion that Burt manipulated and probably falsified IQ-test results. These results earnestly supported his theories of social class and transmitted intelligence. The debate over his behaviour continued for some time. Yet, all parties came to an agreement that his later research work was at least highly inaccurate. Many people accepted the idea that Burt fabricated some of the data.
However, the famous ness of his earlier work justified his reputation as the prominent pioneer of educational psychology in Britain. Sir Cyril Burt to this very day remains one of the most intriguing and complex figures in the intelligence testing history. He was the first to investigate educational psychology in England. Undoubtedly, Sir Cyril Burt was one of the most honored and respected psychologists of his time and hitherto. Yet, he did have controversial ideas concerning the inherited intelligence. Indeed, there is enough evidence that the scientist used falsified data to support his ideas (Start, 1994).
During Burt's lifetime he constantly dedicated himself to proving that intelligence was principally an inherited characteristic of any individual. His enduring and thorough research career began in 1909. At that time Burt compared the intelligence of boys attending a regular school with the intelligence of boys studying in an elite preparatory academy. He chose such measures as mirror drawing in order to control environmental influences. The latter were unlikely to have been learned during the lifetimes of the students. The students of preparatory school scored higher than the other students.
Thus, he came to a conclusion that the former had more inborn intelligence. Besides, he noticed that the parents of the preparatory students were more successful than the other boys parents. Burt explained: this meant that the preparatory learners had an advantage because of their fathers's ulterior genetic mental endowments (Father, 1985). In fact, Sir Cyril Burt did not really believe that 100 % of intelligence is an inherited trait. He realized that the influences of the environment are extremely important. Yet, Burt argued that environmental influences could have genetic origin also.
Burt made such a statement in one of his works: Children of better social status succeed better By birth as well as by home training, children who are superior in social status may be equally superior in general ability. Conversely, if a child proves defective according to a scale that is otherwise authentic, the mere fact that his family is poor and his dwelling a hovel does not of itself condone his deficiency. His parents' home may be mean precisely because their hereditary intelligence is mean. Whether poverty and its accompaniments affect the child's performances in any direct fashion-whether, for example, in the Binet-Simon tests a child that inherits an abundance of natural ability may be handicapped through a lack of cultural opportunities-is a further and a separate issue (Burt, 1922, p. 192). Later in his life Burt would be charged of using fabricated twin data to back up the superiority of genetics over environment. He published a series of articles between 1943 and 1966 on the intelligence of identical twins raised in different homes.
These articles stated the idea that all twins' intelligence test scores were remarkably similar. Some critics after Burt's death indicated several problems with all those articles. They found that the data supporting the results of his tests had either disappeared or had never existed at all. Besides, Burt was unable to verify that his research assistants were real people.
Also critics noticed extremely unfeasible similarities in the IQ correlation coefficients scores and inconsistencies in the reported numbers of twins. It comes as no surprise that Sir Cyril Burt is mentioned in many of the psychology textbooks. However, he is honored not for his scientific discoveries, which, by the way, were many. This is because of his questionable authenticity of the data.
Marginally, the genetic basis of talent and intelligence is still not established. New evidence from studies of twins raised apart confirmed Burt's estimate of heritability. Carefully examining the relationship of brain size to intelligence, and of sex, race, and social rank differences in brain size, critics concluded that the label "the scientific hoax of the century" was correct for the equalitarian dogma of the scientist. Cyril Burt was one of many victims of this deceit. Burt constantly denied racial differences in IQ. This seems to have been what mostly provoked the attack on Burt's straightforwardness.
Burt was concerned with differences of social class. In his works he rarely discussed differences in gender or race. Burt stated that the upper classes had a larger ratio of high genetic intelligence than did the British lower classes, even if there would be more talented children outside the upper class than inside of it (in absolute numbers). By the way, prodigies among children were of special interest to him. Actually, Burt was considered a liberal person in his day. This is because of his belief in the degree of coincidence in the distributions.
This is also due to his point of view that entrance into advanced schools should be based on examination results rather than the parents status. In 1973 the "Burt Affair" began. This happened when Leon Kamin at Princeton University declared that he had found inconsistency in some of Burt's figures. He begun to raise serious questions being in some doubt about Burt's science.
Kamin observed that Burt's articles on intelligence testing suspiciously lacked basic information, such as place, time, and type of test administered. He stated that Burt's articles were filled with highly improbable coincidences, such as correlations that remained exactly the same -- to three decimal places -- even when sample sizes had more than doubled. By 1974, Kamin and Jensen had reached a common assent that Burt's "correlations are useless for hypothesis testing, " stated Jensen. His numbers "are simply not worthy of our scientific attention, " accused Kamin (p. 162). Besides, Kamin noticed a constantly high correlation for IQ scores in the tests of twins raised apart. Despite the increased sample size, from fifteen pairs in 1943 to fifty-three pairs in 1966, the correlation remained at a rounded 0. 77.
The scandal broke wide open with a story in the Sunday Times in 1976 headlined "Crucial Data Was Faked by Eminent Psychologist. "The most sensational charge of scientific fraud this century, " it began, "is being levelled against the late Sir Cyril Burt... Leading scientists are convinced that Burt published false data and invented crucial facts to support his controversial theory that intelligence is largely inherited. " This article accused Burt of not only adjusting his data to suit his theory. It also blamed him for the fact that two of his collaborators "may never have existed. " The controversy gradually increased for about three years. Finally, Leslie Hearnshaw, Burt's biographer, a respected historian of psychology, who had an access to Burt's private diaries, concluded that Burt was really "guilty. " The British Psychological Society, refusing to make an investigation of its own, declared the guilty verdict in 1980. Even Burt's closest defenders of hereditary intelligence, Hans Eysenck in London and Arthur Jensen at Berkeley, quitted to support Burt's theory. The battle seemed to be over with an unbelievable victory for the equalitarians.
However, suddenly, Robert B. Joynson re-opened the case in 1989. Joynson's inspired at least one more round in this endless polemics. He made a conclusion that the charges of fraud did not have sufficient evidence. Burt must be rehabilitated, he stated.
Joynson argued Burt's case like a real defense lawyer. Burt must be presumed innocent, he insisted, until he was proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. The burden of evidence must lie upon the prosecution. Moreover, the standards of admissible evidence must be much narrower, Joynson stated. Memories by any of Burtscontemporaries should have been admitted only when accompanied by written documentation from the questionable period. Besides, all written evidence should have been unambiguous.
The defense has a little bit easier task. It had to prove only that one or more explanations were possible. Joynson's explanations for the many charges against Burt range from the plausible to the completely incredible. He argued that Burt had probably used outdated methods, or even exercised poor judgment. He could also become a victim to jealous colleagues, political enemies, or even a conspiracy of scandalmongers. At one point Joynson showed that several individuals who now believe in Burt's guilt (for example, hereditarily Hans Eysenck), had once worked at Maudsley Hospital, where they may have heard groundless rumors about Burt's unreliability.
Later on Joynson argued intensively with Hearnshaw's claims concerning Burt's character and shady paranoid delusion. Here he contended that Hearnshaw's interpretations were too often preconceived and uncharitable, relying on unquestioned rumors. Hearnshaw ignored contradictory testimonies as well as alternative interpretations about Burt's character and behaviour. Hearnshaw's diagnosis of paranoia appeared to be explained more stingily as the habits and behaviour of an elderly man at the end of a long and irreproachable career. However, if the evidence against Burt's fraud was so weak, and the interpretation of events so tendentious and uncharitable, what was the core of his demise? Joynson found the answer in the intellectual climate of the times.
In short, the force behind Burt's stained reputation was political rather than scientific. Joynson's most serious debate with Hearnshaw was about final papers of Sir Cyril Burt. In 1969, Burt published his test results. They were reportedly gathered somewhere between 1914 and 1965 and clearly showed declining of school performance. In his turn, Hearnshaw quoted an interview (that supposedly appeared in The Guardian) in which Burt had claimed that his tests had been given to hundreds of schoolchildren on a regular basis. Hearnshaw then proved this claim to be a lie.
Unfortunately, Joynson was unable to give any such interview. Nonetheless, Joynson argued that the interview would by no means prove Hearnshaw's correctness, since newspaper accounts were notoriously unreliable. Ronald Fletcher worked independently and completed the overthrow of the evidence for the prosecution, concluding with a "not proven. " Fletcher's implications described how ideology, together with popular journalism and the media, established itself as a powerful force in scientific discourse. Many of the details of the case are striking and a little bit disturbing. For example, there is really amazing fact that Burt's housekeeper destroyed many of his papers almost immediately after the scientists death. This was made on the advice of the professor of educational psychology at Edinburgh University named Liam Hudson.
He was one of Burt's most fervent opponents. Jensen stated that: "Both Hudson's rush to Burt's flat right after his death and his advice to Burt's secretary-housekeeper to burn the stored data seem stranger than fiction. Surely it must be one of the most bizarre events in the whole Burt affair. " Joynson's arguments were sure to invoke detailed objections from those now called "anti-Burts. " However, the broader question of standards of evidence, both scientific and historical, is of more concern than Burt's posthumous reputation. Joynson's research contains nothing to challenge the current consensus. It remains clear that Burt's data are unacceptable as scientific evidence. Moreover, even if one believed in Burt's innocence of conscious fabricating of data, the fact that such data were used in disputes about educational policies and went unchallenged until the very 1970 s would still be infamous.
Sir Cyril Burt was one of the outstanding psychologists of the 20 th century. He was a pioneer in psychometrics and factor theory. Burt many times was accused of data fabrication in his study of inherited IQ, of meaningly distorting his role in the history of factor analysis, of falsifying research assistants, and was even diagnosed as paranoid in his later life. Historians, however, can rarely determine strict standards in admitting evidence. Unfortunately, they must often make their conclusions from incomplete records, ambiguous writings, and the memories of contemporaries.
Thus, Burt's place in history must now be judged by the work heritage he left behind. Bibliography: Burt, Cyril S. Experimental tests of general intelligence. British Journal of Psychology 3 (1909): 94 - 177.
Burt, Cyril S. Mental and scholastic tests. London: P. S. King and Son. 1921. Burt, Cyril S.
The subnormal mind. London: Oxford University Press. 1935. Burt Cyril S. The factors of the mind: An introduction to factor analysis in psychology. London: University of London Press. 1940. Burt, Cyril S.
The gifted child. New York: Wiley. 1975. Kamin, Leon J. The Science and Politics of I. Q. New York: Wiley. 1974.
Zenderland, Leila. The Burt Affair. Science 18 May 1990: A 3. Hearnshaw, Leslie S.
Cyril Burt, Psychologist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1979.
Free research essays on topics related to: environmental influences, factor analysis, york wiley, educational psychology, university of london
Research essay sample on University Of London Factor Analysis
