The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization made public here today what it considers to be the most authoritative statement of modern scientific doctrine ever issued on the controversial subject of race.
The statement sets forth the conclusions of an international panel of scientists formed by UNESCO to define the concept of race and to summarize the most recent findings in this field by biologists, geneticists, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. The main points of the experts’ conclusions are:
1. Racial discrimination has no scientific foundation in biological fact.
2. The range of mental capacities in all races is much the same. There is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in intelligence, temperament or other innate mental characteristics.
3. Extensive study yields no evidence that race mixture produces biologically bad results. The social results of race mixtures are to be traced to social factors. There is no biological justification for prohibiting intermarriage between persons of different ethnic groups.
TERMS RACE “A SOCIAL MYTH”; SAYS NO MODERN RELIGIOUS GROUP IS A RACE
4. Race is less a biological fact than a social myth. As a myth it has in recent years taken a heavy tell in human lives and suffering and still keeps millions of persons from normal development, and civilization from the full use of the cooperation of productive minds.
5. But, scientifically, no large modern national or religious group is a race. Nor are people who speak a single language, or live in a single geographical area, or share in a single cultural community necessarily a race.
6. Tests have shown essential similarity in mental characters among all human racial groups. Given similar degrees of cultural opportunity to realize their potentialities, the average achievement of the members of each ethnic group is about the same.
7. All human beings possess educability and adaptability, the traits which more than all others have permitted the development of men’s mental capacities.
The original statement was drafted by Ernest Beaglehole, New Zealand; Juan Comas, Mexico; La Costa Pinto, Brazil; Franklin Franzier, United States; Morris Ginsberg, United Kingdom; Humayan Kabir, India; Claude Levi-Strauss, France; Ashley Montagu, United States. The text was then circulated by Prof. Montagu and revised after criticisms by Profs. Hadley Cantril, E.G. Conklin, Gunnar Dahlberg, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian S. Huxley, Otto Klineberg, Wilbert Mocre, H.J. Muller, L.C. Dunn, Donald Hager, Gunnar Myrdal, and Joseph Needham.
The statement, Unesco officials said, therefore constitutes the most farreaching and competent pronouncement of its kind ever made and provides a scientific foundation for some of the basic principles expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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