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Book Synopsis

A powerful indictment of the notion of hereditary intelligence, A Terrible Thing to Waste shows how environmental racism drives the black-white IQ gap and explains what can be done to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities.

The 1994 publication of the The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, pointing instead to environmental racism -- a confluence of institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and urban decay -- as the prime cause of the reported black-white IQ gap. Investigating the deleterious heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrit

A Terrible Thing to Waste

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    A Paperback / softback by Harriet A. Washington

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      Book details

      Publisher Little, Brown & Company
      Published 17 September 2020
      ISBN-13 9780316509442
      978-0316509442
      ISBN-10 0316509442
      Also in:
      Ethnic studies / Ethnicity Social discrimination and social justice

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      A powerful indictment of the notion of hereditary intelligence, A Terrible Thing to Waste shows how environmental racism drives the black-white IQ gap and explains what can be done to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities.

      The 1994 publication of the The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, pointing instead to environmental racism -- a confluence of institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and urban decay -- as the prime cause of the reported black-white IQ gap. Investigating the deleterious heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrit

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