The Real Error of Cyril Burt Summary and Analysis

Much of this chapter has to do with the statistical technique of factor analysis. It explains this technique in terms of geometry and matrix algebra. Since this is not a book on math, the highlights of this presentation will be presented and discussed in as simple a manner as possible.

Sir Cyril Burt was a medical tester who studied twins, and he made quite a name for himself, publishing papers during his retirement. "The story of Burt's undoing is now more than a twice-told tale. Princeton psychologist Leon Kamin first noted that, while Burt had increased his sample of twins from fewer than twenty to more than fifty in a series of publications, the average correlation between pairs for IQ remained unchanged to the third decimal place - a statistical situation...