Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race
E96935
Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race is a landmark 1942 book by anthropologist Ashley Montagu that argues race is a social myth rather than a biological reality and critiques racism using scientific evidence.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T810099 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race Context triple: [Ashley Montagu, notableWork, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race]
-
A.
Race: Science and Politics
Race: Science and Politics is a mid-20th-century work of cultural anthropology that critiques scientific racism and argues that race is a social, not biological, construct.
-
B.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
-
C.
The Myth of the Negro Past
The Myth of the Negro Past is a pioneering 1941 anthropological study by Melville J. Herskovits that challenged prevailing racist assumptions by documenting the enduring African cultural heritage among African Americans.
-
D.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
-
E.
On the Making of Man
On the Making of Man is a theological and philosophical treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that explores the creation, nature, and purpose of humanity within a Christian framework.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race Target entity description: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race is a landmark 1942 book by anthropologist Ashley Montagu that argues race is a social myth rather than a biological reality and critiques racism using scientific evidence.
-
A.
Race: Science and Politics
Race: Science and Politics is a mid-20th-century work of cultural anthropology that critiques scientific racism and argues that race is a social, not biological, construct.
-
B.
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate is a book by Steven Pinker that critiques the notion of human minds as entirely shaped by environment and argues for the significant role of innate human nature, making it a foundational text in evolutionary psychology debates.
-
C.
The Myth of the Negro Past
The Myth of the Negro Past is a pioneering 1941 anthropological study by Melville J. Herskovits that challenged prevailing racist assumptions by documenting the enduring African cultural heritage among African Americans.
-
D.
The Third Chimpanzee
The Third Chimpanzee is a popular science book by Jared Diamond that explores human evolution and behavior by comparing Homo sapiens to our closest primate relatives.
-
E.
On the Making of Man
On the Making of Man is a theological and philosophical treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that explores the creation, nature, and purpose of humanity within a Christian framework.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
anthropology book
ⓘ
book ⓘ non-fiction book ⓘ |
| addresses |
moral implications of racism
ⓘ
social consequences of racial thinking ⓘ |
| aim |
to critique racism using scientific evidence
ⓘ
to refute the biological concept of race ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst |
biological determinism
ⓘ
the existence of discrete human races ⓘ |
| author | Ashley Montagu ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| critiques |
eugenics
ⓘ
racial classification systems ⓘ scientific racism ⓘ |
| discipline | anthropology ⓘ |
| genre |
anthropology
ⓘ
social science ⓘ |
| hasEdition | revised editions published after 1942 ⓘ |
| impact |
contributed to the delegitimization of scientific racism
ⓘ
influenced postwar discussions on race and racism ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Boasian anthropology
ⓘ
Franz Boas ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
human variation
ⓘ
race ⓘ racism ⓘ social construction of race ⓘ |
| notableFor |
being an early comprehensive critique of race as a biological category
ⓘ
popularizing the idea that race is a social construct ⓘ |
| positionOnHumanity | all humans belong to a single species with continuous variation ⓘ |
| positionOnRace |
race is an invalid biological concept
ⓘ
racial categories are historically and socially constructed ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1942 ⓘ |
| relatedTo | UNESCO statements on race ⓘ |
| supports |
the idea that cultural and environmental factors explain human differences
ⓘ
the view that humanity is a single species ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general educated readers
ⓘ
students of anthropology and social sciences ⓘ |
| thesis |
biological evidence does not support the concept of distinct human races
ⓘ
race is a social myth rather than a biological reality ⓘ racism is based on pseudoscientific assumptions ⓘ |
| timePeriodAddressed | early 20th century racial theories ⓘ |
| usesEvidenceFrom |
biology
ⓘ
genetics ⓘ physical anthropology ⓘ social science ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race Description of subject: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race is a landmark 1942 book by anthropologist Ashley Montagu that argues race is a social myth rather than a biological reality and critiques racism using scientific evidence.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.