"On This Day" Sir Julian Huxley..

     On this day in history, Sir Julian Sorell Huxley was born in 1887. He was a prominent evolutionary biologist and the premier President of the British Humanist Association. His works in biology included being a proponent for natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. Sir Huxley was among the few biologists of that time showing that evolution worked through small changes. The common belief was that evolution happened in large jumps.

He wrote many books on humanism, ethics, and evolutionary biology. Including,The Humanist Frame where he writes,

“The immediate task for a Humanist ethic is to rid the world of the now palpable irrationality of war. Once freed from the fear of war, the peoples of the world will be free to develop each in its own way, but in relation to the whole human community, and to deal with the problems that knowledge can deal with, the conquest of disease and poverty and the removal of the barriers that divide men.”

     During a time of great wars and turmoil, he was an advocate of peace and human dignity. He also played a major role in the development of a statement released by the United Nations Educational,Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) , The Race Question.

     The statement aimed at dispelling the myth of race,particularly concerning human racial divisions. In The Race Question UNESCO spoke about race as follows,

“A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens"… "National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cult groups do not necessary coincide with racial groups: the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic [connection] with racial traits.”

     Huxley was among several scientist's enlisted by UNESCO to prepare their statement with all of the scientific facts regarding racial divisions. Their findings were that racial division in humans was no more than a “...social myth...”, with no biologically relevant basis. The myth of race is responsible for great wrongdoing on the behalf human societal development, and humanity must rid itself of these divisive ideologies.