Franz Boas

Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology".

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• Eugenics should, therefore, not be allowed to deceive us into the belief that we should try to raise a race of supermen, nor that it should be our aim to eliminate all suffering and pain. The attempt to suppress those defective classes whose deficiencies can be proved by rigid methods to be due to hereditary causes, and to prevent unions that will unavoidably lead to the birth of disease-stricken progeny, is the proper field of eugenics. How much can be and should be attempted in this field depends upon the results of careful studies of the law of heredity. Eugenics is not a panacea that will cure human ills, it is rather a dangerous sword that may turn its edge against those who rely on its strength.
  • The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 5, pp. 471-478. (November, 1916)

Race and Democratic Society (1945)

• The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake...can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake.
  • Introduction

• The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.
  • Chapter 2

• No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics.
  • Chapter 7