Race, UNESCO Statements on

Scientific Facts

The UN's Economic and Social Council asked UNESCO in 1951 to develop effective educational programs in the fields of prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities and to undertake “a programme of disseminating scientific facts designed to remove what is commonly known as racial prejudice.” UNESCO had already started work on this by assembling an international committee of experts, representing both the biological and the social sciences. The committee had prepared a fifteen-paragraph “Statement on Race” that was published in 1950. Among other things, it stated, “A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens.” It went on to explain, “When most people use the term ‘race’ they do not do so in the sense above defined” so that “the biological fact of race and the myth of ‘race’ should be distinguished” and that “it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of ethnic groups.”

The statement was primarily concerned with the use of race in the sense of species, but in referring to “the biological fact of race,” it touched on the use of the word to signify inheritance.

Because of last-minute withdrawals, biological science was not adequately represented in the committee. Many biologists, though not rejecting the statement's general spirit or its main conclusions, believed that it went beyond the scientific facts (e.g., in the reference to “drives towards co-operation”) and that it confused the biological and social uses of the word race. To clear up any possible misunderstanding, UNESCO assembled another group, this time including physical anthropologists and geneticists who had expressed disagreement with the first statement. This group drew up the 1951 Statement on the Nature of Race and Race Differences. UNESCO considered it important to avoid any suggestion that it was issuing an authoritative manifesto as the last word on the race question, so it sent out the draft to a further ninety-six scientists. In a booklet titled The Race Concept, UNESCO then published the statement, a selection of observations and comments, three alternative suggested statements, and a reformulation of the 1951 statement prepared by L. C. Dunn of Columbia University, the rapporteur of the 1951 meeting.

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