In a wide-ranging lecture in London on Monday hosted by Brunel University’s Magna Carta Institute, Justice Secretary Jack Straw outlined his thoughts on the state of democracy in Britain and beyond.

After the talk, Straw told Reuters that the most pressing issue in UK democracy is the need for politicians to restore public trust following an expenses scandal that forced the main political parties to work together to resolve the crisis.

“People feel a bit detached from the political system,” Straw said, adding that it is important to work out ways to “get people back into connection.”

Disclosures earlier this year that MPs claimed on their expenses for everything from manure to porn films triggered public outrage. The controversy led MPs to oust parliament’s speaker for the first time in 300 years.

Debate continues to swirl around the theory of evolution Charles Darwin proposed 150 years ago in his groundbreaking book, “On the Origin of Species,” despite its universal acceptance among scientists.

Before Darwin’s discovery, the world was generally thought to have remained more or less the same since its creation. This belief, based on Biblical interpretations, was contested through fossil studies showing that species change over time.

Darwin’s legendary round-the-world 1831-1836 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle generated his most significant observations and discoveries, inspiring his work on natural selection.

Although Darwin first used the term “natural selection” in a paper in 1842, it wasn’t until 1859 that he published his controversial theory that all living beings share a common ancestry — a discovery that remains vital to modern biology.

Author Nick Spencer, director of studies at Theos, a research organisation launched in 2006 with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, explained why the debate persists to this day.

“People are encountering evolution not so much as a science but as a philosophy,” he told Reuters ahead of a Nov. 24 lecture at Westminster Abbey to mark the anniversary of the exact date on which Darwin’s book was first published.

Amid ongoing debates over the hazards of excessive digital exposure through such Web 2.0 social networking platforms as Facebook and Twitter, a new book by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger extols the virtues of forgetfulness.

Since the emergence of digital technology and global networks, forgetting has become an exception, Mayer-Schonberger writes in “Delete”.

“Forgetting plays a central role in human decision-making,” he argues. “It lets us act in time, cognizant of, but not shackled by, past events.”

Mayer-Schonberger shared his theory on how to fight back against the digital panopticon with Reuters before giving a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.

Ahead of a U.N. summit in Copenhagen next month, scepticism is growing that an agreement will be reached on a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

The protocol set targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed to be responsible for the gradual rise in the Earth’s average temperature. Many scientists say that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is key to preventing climate change.

But authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argue in their new book SuperFreakonomics that humanity can take an alternative route to try and save the planet.

“If the goal is to stop warming then geo-engineering solutions are worth considering because they are far cheaper, probably much more do-able and easily reversible,” Dubner told Reuters before a talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.

Related vlog: How to become a freakonomist

Scientists argue that rich nations must make drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous climate change. The way energy is used, priced and created would have to change in order to institute these cuts.

Ahead of elections in Britain, which must be held before June 2010, Dave Timms of Friends of the Earth shared his thoughts with Reuters on what the group thinks the next government needs to do in order to build a low-carbon economy.

What do you do when you are trained as an economist, but find economics too complex?

Become a freakonomist, of course.

Steven D. Levitt, co-author of  the freshly published  SuperFreakonomics, decided to “take the tools of economics and apply them to the kind of questions that no self-respecting economist would ever want to be related to — like: does the name that you give your children affect their life outcomes; what are the underlying economics of prostitution; or, is your estate agent ripping you off?”

Levitt, who teaches economics at the University of Chicago, co-wrote SuperFreakonomics and an earlier book titled Freakonomics with New York journalist Stephen J. Dubner.

Before a talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London, Levitt explained to Reuters how he became a freakonomist.

Related vlog: A freakonomic view of climate change

Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.

The Food Chain Campaign is not about becoming vegetarian, say the Friends of the Earth, it is about putting pressure on the government to mitigate the damaging impact of meat and dairy production on the environment.

“The meat and dairy industry produces more climate-changing emissions than all the planes, cars and lorries on the planet,” argues the group. “A hidden chain links animals in British factory farms to rainforest destruction in South America.”

London-based Kirtana Chandrasekaran shared the goals of the campaign with Reuters.

Related Story: The fight over the future of food

When the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, the momentous event marked the triumph of the market economy over planned economic structures, says British economist John Kay.

He explains his views on why the capitalist system reigns supreme.

Amid the turmoil of the 2008 financial crisis a myriad of events unfolded that the general public knew nothing about, writes New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin in a new book titled “Too Big to Fail.”

Wall Street fell from the dizzying heights of good fortune to calamity in a matter of months. To a large degree it’s still to early to tell whether financiers and politicians involved made the right choices.

“At its core ‘Too Big to Fail’ is a chronicle of failure — a failure that brought the world to its knees and raised questions about the very nature of capitalism,” writes Sorkin in his behind-the-scenes account.

He spoke with Reuters before giving a lecture at the London School of Economics on Thursday.

Recent U.S.  gross domestic product data show the world’s biggest economy emerged from recession in the third quarter, while in the UK data show that in the same period Britain’s economy contracted.

British economist and author John Kay theorizes that Britain is mired in its worst recession on record in part because government support has not been evenly distributed across sectors.

“We’ve poured money into the financial sector — by and large the financial sector in Britain is doing OK,” he said.  “But very little of that is getting through to small and medium-size businesses out there in the rest of the economy.”