One of the foremost educational psychologists of his generation. He served the London County Council for many years as their official psychiatrist, and he occupied the chair of psychology at University College, London, from 1932 until 1950. Burt was responsible for testing and interpreting the results of mental tests for thousands of schoolchildren in the greater London area. After his retirement from University College, he published several papers in which he tried to establish that intelligence was hereditary and not environmental. He did this by comparing the results of IQ TESTS taken by close relatives who were raised in different backgrounds.
Burt’s most famous study compared the results of tests given to identical twins who had been raised apart. He claimed to have found 53 pairs of identical twins who were raised separately, and in each case the twins showed similar IQ scores. One’s intelligence, according to Burt, was based almost entirely on who one’s parents were. In 1969, psychologist Arthur Jensen used Burt’s figures to try to prove that differences in intelligence between blacks and whites in America were the result of inherited differences, not of inequities in schooling.