Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed?

This study examines the evidence purporting that one of Britain's most eminent educational psychologists, who died in 1971, was a fraud who fabricated data claiming that human intelligence is inherited. The contributors to this text examine the evidence carefully and dispassionately.

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When Cyril Burt died in 1971, he was widely regarded as Britain's most eminent educational psychologist. Within five years of his death, however, he was being publicly denounced as a fraud who had fabricated data purporting to show that human intelligence is inherited. Was he really a fraud? Or was he accused of fraud by critics anxious to dismiss such a politically unacceptable scientific theory? Where does the truth lie? The contributors to this book examine the evidence carefully and dispassionately and conclude that both the defence and the prosecution cases are seriously flawed.

This is a rigorous reanalysis of the data, which has turned up new instances of potential fraud which were not evident before. "The Bell Curve" (Murray & Hearnshaw), published last year, has re-ignited the controversy over the heritability of intelligence. This book provides the most modern and unbiased analysis available of one of the most notorious scandals in science; this is an important re-examination of an issue of great public and scientific interest.