308 THE MISMEASURE OF MANHearnshaw comments (1979, p. 30): "Inadequate reporting and
incautious conclusions mark this first incursion of Burt into the
genetic field. We have here, right at the beginning of his career,
the seeds of later troubles."
Even when Burt did test subjects, he rarely reported the actual
scores as measured, but "adjusted" them according to his own
assessment of their failure to measure true intelligence as he and
other experts subjectively judged it. He admitted in a major work
(1921, p. 280):
I did not take my test results just as they stood. They were carefully
discussed with teachers, and freely corrected whenever it seemed likely
that the teacher's view of the relative merits of his own pupils gave a better
estimate than the crude test marks.
Such a procedure is not without its commendable intent. It does
admit the inability of a mere number, calculated during a short
series of tests, to capture such a subtle notion as intelligence. It
does grant to teachers and others with extensive personal knowl-
edge the opportunity to record their good judgment. But it surely
makes a mockery of any claim that a specific hypothesis is under
objective and rigorous test. For if one believes beforehand that
well-bred children are innately intelligent, then in what direction
will the scores be adjusted?*
Despite his minuscule sample, his illogical arguments, and his
dubious procedures, Burt closed his 1909 paper with a statement
of personal triumph (p. 176):
Parental intelligence, therefore, may be inherited, individual intelli-
gence measured, and general intelligence analyzed; and they can be ana-
lyzed, measured and inherited to a degree which few psychologists have
hitherto legitimately ventured to maintain.When Burt recycled these data in a 1912 paper for the Eugenics
Review, he added additional "proof" with even smaller samples. He
•Sometimes, Burt descended even further into circular illogic and claimed that tests
must measure innate intelligence because the testers constructed them to do so:
"Indeed from Binet onwards practically all the investigators who have attempted to
construct 'intelligence tests' have been primarily searching for some measure of
inborn capacity, as distinct from acquired knowledge or skill. With such an interpre-
tation it obviously becomes foolish to inquire how far 'intelligence' is due to environ-
ment and how far it is due to innate constitution: the very definition begs and setdes
the question" (1943. p- 88).