Cyril Burt

Sir
Cyril Burt
Cyril Burt in 1930
Born
Cyril Lodowic Burt

(1883-03-03)3 March 1883
Died10 October 1971(1971-10-10) (aged 88)
London, England
EducationKing's School, Warwick
Christ's Hospital
Jesus College, Oxford
Known forTwin study; fraudulent research
AwardsE. L. Thorndike Award (1968)
Scientific career
InstitutionsLiverpool University, London County Council (LCC), University College London
Academic advisorsWilliam McDougall, Charles Scott Sherrington
Notable studentsRaymond Cattell, Hans Eysenck, Arthur Jensen, Chris Brand
Notes
After he died it became evident that his research on twins separated at birth was based on falsified data.

Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, FBA (3 March 1883 – 10 October 1971) was an English educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics. He is known for his studies on the heritability of IQ.

Shortly after he died, his studies of inheritance of intelligence were discredited after evidence emerged indicating he had falsified research data, inventing correlations in separated twins which did not exist, alongside other fabrications.

  1. ^ Arthur R. Jensen, "Sir Cyril Burt (1883–1971)", Psychometrika 37, Number 2 (1972), 115–117.