Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century

by Dorothy Roberts

On July 18, 1950, the New York Times ran a front-page story, “No Scientific Basis for Race Bias Found by World Panel of Experts.”61 That day, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a landmark “Statement on Race,” drafted by an international committee of experts, declaring that race “is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth.” The committee emphasized that human populations share most of their traits, meaning that “the likenesses among men are far greater than their differences.” Rejecting the Nazi idea that some races are superior to others, the UNESCO statement concluded that biological science demonstrated “the unity of mankind.”