Mathematics is a precise language for science. But there are many people who can’t work out the numbers. The inability to reason with numbers is called Quantitative Illiteracy, or Innumeracy. People can begin to think critically of almost anything, including science news, if they can understand numbers. The United States lags behind other countries in science and math teaching. The problem is that students are taught by rote learning, where they are tested on anything they can memorize. Critics say that learning by rote is not the same thing as understanding.