Review Of A Terrible Thing To Waste By Harriet A. Washington

An IQ test is a complex assessment that scores people on their overall intelligence. Though, intelligence is very diverse and can mean a plethora of things, so can one test truly determine all the vast varieties of intelligence? It cannot. In the book, A Terrible Thing To Waste, the idea of IQ disparities are deeply dove into, and the roots of this problem are exposed. This book discusses environmental racism, toxins damaging the brain and its ability to receive and process information, politics and its role in these topics, and what can be done about these problems. A Terrible Thing To Waste was written by Harriet A. Washington, who is a multiple times author and researcher in many departments, including medical ethics. The main topic of her book deals with environmental racism and how that has led to IQ disparities

She focuses for a brief time on specifically the IQ test and how it is inherently already geared towards giving Western countries and cultures an advantage to scoring higher. Many countries and cultures around the world prioritize different aspects of learning and devote less time to others, like math for example. In some cultures, there is little reason to become skilled at math so the general population of that culture is probably not taught math. However, in Western cultures math be more important to one's life skills and therefore taught more. This fact disproportionately gives some cultures advantages in IQ tests over others. Washington makes the point that if tests were given according to the specific culture and their priorities then there would not be as jagged scores across different cultures. IQ disparities can also come from environmental factors as