From: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Was Burt Stitched Up?
Keywords: Sir Cyril Burt, accusations of "fraud".
Date: 13 Apr 92 11:29:38 GMT
Reply-To: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Organization: Chemical & Process Engineering Dept, University of Newcastle, UK.

sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>        A  few  weeks  ago,  I replied to a  post  about  the  supposedly
>        'fraudulent  and discredited work of Cyril Burt on the  heridita-

could you send me a copy of your article or repost it to the net if you
still have a copy.

>        bility of intelligence' by noting that I'd seen a review of a new
>        book claiming to exonerate Burt. It turns out that there are  two
>        such books, and the British Psychological Society is  reconsider-
>        ing its censure of Burt. Some excerpts:


>        From "Nature", Vol. 340, p. 439 (10 August, 1989):
>                    Was Burt stitched up?, by Steve Blinkhorn
>        (a  review of "The Burt Affair" by Robert B. Joynson,  Routledge,
>              1989)

>        From "Nature" Vol. 352, p. 120 (11 July, 1991)
>                     "Raking over the coals" by Lee Lovinger
>        (a  review of "Science, Ideology, and the Media: The  Cyril  Burt
>        Scandal" by Ronald Fletcher, Transaction Publishers, 1991)

>             science  ... Strongly opposed to Burt's position were  those
>             who  contended  that mental abilities  were  environmentally
>             determined,  that IQ tests and other heriditarian data  were
>             unreliable,  and  that  there was  really  no  single  trait
>             identifiable as intelligence. The most vehement  environmen-
>             talists  were  left-wing egalitarians who  accused  Burt  of
>             justifying class distinctions ...

And I would expect the strongest support for Burt 
came from right wingers looking
for justifications to support the status quo.  The fact that people of 
either persuasion supported one side or the other should not stop us 
looking at the evidence being provided for the theories of inheritence 
vs. environment.


>        From "Nature", Vol. 354 p. 97 (14 November 1991):
>                     "Burt files reopened" by Peter Aldhous

>             Under  pressure  from  ten  of  its  fellows,  the   British
>             Psychological  Society  is  reconsidering  its  1980  public
>             discrediting of Sir Cyril Burt, the author of  controversial
>             publications   on   the  inheritance  of   intelligence   in
>             children ...

>             Bill  Wald,  a retired child psychologist who  has  led  the
>             campaign   within  the  British  Psychological  Society   to
>             reinstate Burt, argues that the discrediting was politically
>             motivated,  coming  from psychologists  who  opposed  Burt's
>             ideas  on the inheritance of intelligence. On the  basis  of
>             the  latest evidence, "you can disagree with Burt,  but  you
>             can't say that he was a fraud."

Stephen Jay Gould's 'The Mismeasure of Man' goes into quite a bit of detail
on the theory Burt supported.  Gould seems to me to present a very good
case that the factor analysis used by Burt was no good.  Whether or not 
Burt made up his data Gould argues that the data itself is no good - in the
sense that it CANNOT be used to support a hereditarian viewpoint.  the data
neiter supports or disproves the heriditarian or environmentalist viewpoints.

>        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com

>     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
>     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
>     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
>     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
>                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968

                                         W.P.Coyne@newcastle.ac.uk 
................ ................................+.......................
Department of Process and Chemical Engineering,  +
Newcastle University, United Kingdom.            + "If we breed like rabbits,
                                                 +  in the long run we have
ARPA : W.P.Coyne@newcastle.ac.uk                 +  we have to die like 
UUCP : ...!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!W.P.Coyne         +  rabbits" Carlson on
JANET: W.P.Coyne@uk.ac.newcastle                 +  population growth. 
................ ................................+.......................
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:7959 alt.paranormal:1232