US said to be threatened with scientific illiteracy

Scientific illiteracy is on the rise in the United States and schools need help to avoid a generation of Americans unable to deal with a complex world, says the nation's most prestigious group of scientists.

At a conference on the problem, Dr. Paul DeHart Hurd, professor emeritus at Stanford University, said only a third of high school graduates have completed three years of math. Less than a fifth of them have had three years of science.