Essay On The Fallacy Of Race By Stanley Montagu

Ashley Montagu contributed many works involving anthropological concepts, however two of his major works involved changing the mentality of how race is approached. The first piece that Montagu was known for was Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, which was written during a time that race ws a determinant of one’s intelligence and self-character. He states that within the study of biology, “-race is defined as a subdivision of species … In this sense, there are many human 'races.' But this is not the sense in which many anthropologists, race-classifiers, and racists have used the term,” (Montagu 1945). This called out many scientific individuals who had used race as a determinant of each person’s ability to cognitively function and their ranking within the hierarchy of humankind. He admitted within the piece that there are differences physically with each distinct race, however due to the mixing of many cultures there is no district races and that there are just mixed ethnic groups (Montagu 1945). His writings went more into detail about how humans are complex creatures who cannot be measured on a hierarchy. That there is no race more superior to another (Montagu 1945). He
The first statement was that “Scientists have reached general agreement in recognizing that mankind is one: that all men belong to the same species, Homo sapiens," (Montagu 1972). This meaning that during the time of him writing this many scientists were coming to the consensus that all humans belong to the Homo sapien family. This was very blunt to the point because the prior belief was mainly that African Americans were not the same species as Caucasians. This statement made it so any person who read it could not argue against the notion that it is not believed, or been proven, within modern