THE 1964 UNESCO PROPOSALS ON THE BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF RACE: A CRITIQUE DWIGHTJ. INGLE* . . . This noxious poison of racism is still with us in many forms today, and often enough science is prostituted in an attempt to make it intellectually respectable. Human equality has an almost equal enemy in those who confuse equality with egalitarianism . The human person is not an abstraction; he lives as an individual in time and space. Individually human persons are unequal in many ways, both natural and acquired: in talent, ability, virtue, intelligence, beauty, grace, energy, and health. To all of these natural or acquired inequalities, one must add those that result from long generations of injustice, persecution, exploitation, the whole weight ofsorrow that results from bad men and bad institutions. These inequalities oftime and place do not create a new species of man, or produce a man less entitled to his rightful equality before the law and equality of opportunity for all things human. The basic mistake of the idealistic egalitarians is that they refuse to look at the reality ofthe human situation. They are disturbed by any hierarchy ofvalues. Everything must be leveled. Mediocrity must be the order ofthe day. There is no place for thesuperior, no matter in what context it is achieved. Creative genius ofany kind must be put into their preconceived straitjacket. Culture must be, and really is in their society, horribly drab. There are no mountains or valleys among men, only plains. All this is a perversion ofhuman equality, is again an over-emphasis on rights at the expense ofobligations. Egalitarians may indeed speak the right words at times, and engage in good cause, but their music is dissonant when one considers that equality in rights is only a moral beginning. Performance differs from person to person. All should have an equal opportunity, but then ifhistory is any guide, within the democracy ofequal men there will always be the aristocracy of excellence.—From the address given by the Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., President, University of Notre Dame, before the American Academy ofArts and Sciences, Boston, November it, 1964. During August 12-18 in Moscow, a document on the biological aspects of the race question was approved and countersigned by twenty-two biologists, geneticists, and anthropologists under the chairmanship ofProfessor G. F. Debetz ofthe Moscow Institute ofEthnography. Although in general agreement with several statements in this document , I believe that other important conclusions are no more than hypotheses and should not be represented as verities. The document is reproduced as follows, with criticisms of certain statements inserted. * Professor and Chairman, Department ofPhysiology, University ofChicago; Editor, perspectives IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE. 4O3 The undersigned, assembled by UNESCO in order to give their views on the biological aspects ofthe race question and in particular to formulate the biological part for a statement foreseen for 1966 and intended to bring up to date and to complete the declaration on the nature ofrace and racial differences signed in 1951, have unanimously agreed on the following: 1)AU men living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and are derived from a common stock. There are differences ofopinion regarding how and when different human groups diverged from this common stock. 2)Biological differences between human beings are due to differences in hereditary constitution and to the influence ofthe environment on this genetic potential. In most cases, those differences are due to the interaction ofthese two sets offactors. 3)There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races—in the sense ofgenetically homogeneous populations—do not exist in the human species. 4)There are obvious physical differences between populations living in different geographical areas ofthe world, in their average appearance. Many ofthese differences have a genetic component. More often the latter consist in differences in the frequency of the same hereditary characters. 5)Different classifications of mankind into major stocks, and ofthose into more restricted categories (races, which are groups of populations, or single populations) have beenproposed on the basis ofhereditary physicaltraits. Nearly all classifications recognize at least three major stocks. Since the pattern ofgeographic variation ofthe characteristics used in racial classification is a complex one, and since this pattern...