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When he died in 1971, Sir Cyril Burt was considered one of the leading figures of 20th-century British psychology. A few years later, he was the center of a sensational scandal. On October 24, 1976, an article appeared on the front page of the London Sunday Times with the headline “Crucial data was faked by eminent psychologist.” The story alleged that Sir Cyril had published false data and invented crucial facts to support his thesis that intelligence (I.Q.) is mostly inherited. Specifically, the article charged Burt with four offenses: (1) that Burt, in his twin studies, had often guessed the intelligence of parents and then treated his guesses as hard scientific data; (2) that two of Burt's collaborators, listed on his publications, may never have existed; (3) that Burt's identical correlations across various samples showed that he was adjusting his samples to fit his theories; and (4) that he had worked backward to supply data that would support his genetic theories of inherited intelligence.
With few exceptions, the general reaction to the Sunday Times accusations was that Burt must be guilty of some intentional dishonesty and fraud; after all, with all that smoke, there must be fire! At the time, a biography of Burt was in preparation by the leading historian of British psychology, L. S. Hearnshaw. It