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.

A mouse that can speak? A monkey with Down's Syndrome? Dogs with human hands or feet? British scientists want to know if such experiments are acceptable, or if they go too far in the name of medical research.

The Academy of Medical Sciences has launched a study to look at the use of animals containing human material in scientific research.

Using human material in animals is not new. Scientists have already created rhesus macaque monkeys that have a human form of the Huntingdon's gene so they can investigate how the disease develops; and mice with livers made from human cells are being used to study the effects of new drugs.

But scientists say the technology to put ever greater amounts of human genetic material into animals is spreading quickly around the world -- raising the possibility that some scientists in some places may want to push boundaries.

Religious groups are among those that are uneasy about the trend. One Catholic cardinal, Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh, has branded such work "Frankenstein science."

Martin Bobrow, a professor of medical genetics at Cambridge University is chairman of a 14-member group looking into the issue.

He says: "Do most of us care if we make a mouse whose blood cells or liver are human? Probably not. But if it can speak? If it can think? Or if it is conscious in a human way? Then we're in a completely different ballpark."

What do you say?

British biologist Richard Dawkins, one of the leading voices of the "neo-atheist" movement, has taken the latest book-sized shot at the "intelligent design" movement. You can read my interview with Dawkins' here about his new book: "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution."

For a scientist of Dawkins' caliber, intelligent design is a barn-door sized target. In a nutshell, it maintains that life is so complex that it must be the work of a creator. Its boosters claim their view is based in science and not influenced by religion, but it is widely seen as a thinly-veiled attempt to give a scientific gloss to creationism. That claim to science is the key here -- most religions believe that God created the world, of course, but they state this as an article of faith and not a scientific fact.

On this blog, we often report on issues related to science and religion. We have to remain agnostic on the biggest question of all -- does God exist? -- and take fundamental dogmas as the starting point for each faith. This sometimes strikes readers as strange or biased. Some think it already shows a prejudice against belief. But just imagine what would happen if we took sides on teachings such as the resurrection of Jesus or the divine origin of the Koran. We would not be practicing journalism anymore, but some kind of theological analysis or deconstruction, and our readers would not be getting the information they want about religion news around the world.

That said, we can't just take everything on faith alone.  As journalists, we have to stick to facts on the ground. It's hard to question some beliefs, but we can hold people responsible for what they profess. For example, if a Catholic priest has an affair with a woman, that violation of his vow of celibacy makes his affair different from one between two lay people or two non-Catholics. And if he is prominent enough, like the charismatic Miami television preacher Father Alberto Cutié, it's worth reporting. The same applies to Islam. The scriptures of most if not all religions can be vague and sometimes seemingly contradictory, so Reuters cannot say whether the phrase  "Islam is a religion of peace" is true or false. But we can report if a Muslim known to preach that belief is found to be involved in some violent activity. In both cases, we don't question the basic tradition or belief but we hold the believers responsible to it in their actions.

Which brings me to the question of evolution. While preparing this post, I had a lively Dallas-to-Paris email exchange with Religion Editor Tom Heneghan about how we cover an issue in which two sides are so opposed.  We agree with how we've been doing it so far, but setting out our approach in words took some consultation. Here's our view of the issue.

(Photo: Portrait of Charles Darwin, 12 Feb 2009/Gordon Jack)

All serious scientists accept evolution as a fact because of the overwhelming and verifiable evidence that supports it. Much of this evidence is laid out in Dawkins' new book and a book published earlier this year by University of Chicago scientist Jerry Coyne called "Why Evolution is True." I regard the latter, by the way, as more readable, especially for a layman. These came out now because this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th of the publication of his major work "On the Origin of Species," which originally laid out the case for evolution by natural selection. They have also come out because the authors are clearly irritated by the intelligent design movement.

How does that play out when we report about evolution? For example, when we write about the wildlife of Madagascar, we usually include a background paragraph saying something like: "Madagascar separated from the rest of Africa tens of millions of years ago and so its species evolved in isolation from its mother continent." In a story about its lemurs, we don't write: "Scientists say Madagascar broke off from Africa tens of millions of years but some people, taking the Bible as their reference, believe it can only be 10,000 years old and that its lemurs were made in their current form by a supernatural creator." That would create a false equivalence between the two views. The scientists have empirical evidence for their view of these natural phenomena but the religious view is based on scripture and does not stand up to empirical analysis. This is a case of comparing apples and oranges.

Does this mean we have taken sides and are not being balanced? Hardly. In fact, we would lay ourselves open to that charge if we did give equal credence to arguments such as intelligent design. For instance, some boosters for intelligent design, trying to get their perspective taught alongside evolution in U.S. public schools despite repeated defeats, have shifted their approach and argued that for the sake of balance it is necessary to "teach the controversy" between evolution's supporters and skeptics. But the world of science sees no serious issue to discuss, just a false equivalence created by campaigners trying to claim the seal of scientific approval for arguments that do not stand up to empirical testing.

So why do we "report the controversy" if we think one side has no case? We do it because creationists are numerous and politically and culturally influential in parts of the United States. They're challenging science teaching in some states and opening museums that claim to prove evolution never happened. We also do it because their influence is spreading to other countries, most notably to Muslim countries through the work of Islamic creationists like Harun Yahya. And we do it because their arguments, flawed though they may be in the eyes of science, challenge scientists, religious leaders, philosophers and other thinkers to refine their arguments for whichever view of mankind they support. These are serious adult questions and attempts to wedge them into high school biology lessons miss the mark by a mile.

(Photo: Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis, at a creation museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, 26 May 2007/John Sommers II)

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Until not too long ago, most people believed human morality was based on scripture, culture or reason. Some stressed only one of those sources, others mixed all three. None would have thought to include biology. With the progress of neuroscientific research in recent years, though, a growing number of psychologists, biologists and philosophers have begun to see the brain as the base of our moral views. Noble ideas such as compassion, altruism, empathy and trust, they say, are really evolutionary adaptations that are now fixed in our brains. Our moral rules are actually instinctive responses that we express in rational terms when we have to justify them.

(Photo: Religious activist at a California protest, 10 June 2005/Gene Blevins)

Thanks to a flurry of popular articles, scientists have joined the ranks of those seen to be qualified to speak about morality, according to anthropologist Mark Robinson, a Princeton Ph.D student who discussed this trend at the University of Pennsylvania's Neuroscience Boot Camp. "In our current scientific society, where do people go to for the truth about human reality?" he asked. "It used to be you might read a philosophy paper or consult a theologian. But now there seems to be a common public sense that the authority over what morality is can be found by neuroscientists or scientists."

This change has come over the past decade as brain scan images began to reveal which areas of the brain react when a person grapples with a moral problem. They showed activity not only in the prefrontal cortex, where much of our rational thought is processed, but also in areas known to handle emotion and conflicts between brain areas. Such insights cast doubt on long-standing assumptions about reason or religion driving our moral views. "A few theorists have even begun to claim that that the emotions are in fact in charge of the temple of morality and that moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as the high priest," University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt, one of the leading theorists in this field, has written.

Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory argues that morality is based on five concepts that evolved in all cultures: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authorty/respect and purity/sanctity. Those concepts have real-life consequences, he says -- political liberals and conservatives disagree so much on so-called "culture war issues" because liberals base their moral views on the first two concepts while conservatives use all five. Other theorists such as Marc Hauser of Harvard and John Mikhail of Georgetown suggest humans have a universal moral grammar akin to the universal grammar that linguist Noam Chomsky claims underlies all the world's languages.

For more on these ideas, see review articles such as "The Moral Instinct" (Stephen Pinker, New York Times), "Do The Right Thing" (Rebecca Saxe, Boston Review), "The Emerging Moral Psychology" (Dan Jones, Prospect), "The Roots of Morality" (Greg Miller, Science) and "The End of Philosophy" (David Brooks, New York Times). Hat-tip to fellow boot camper Tamar Gendler for pointing them out.

(Photo: Mark Robinson at the boot camp,10 Aug 2009/Tom Heneghan)

Does this mean that public opinion will turn away from seeing reason or religion as the bases for morality, in favor of the brain? Robinson doubts that. "I don't know that they will shift to a completely neurobiological view of morality (and) I don't think this is a fundamental shift away from religion. But it will mean that religion will have to come to terms with the public's perception.

"I think there will be a greater acceptance of biology as an accepted domain within which to ask certain types of questions. That isn't to say that people will understand morality completely differently in the future, or won't have any morality. But they will at least know that (neuroscience) is another domain to go to for answers. The question of authority is a big one. Who is the ultimate authority on these issues about the fundamental nature of human morality?"

Robinson stressed that the authority issue is different from the question of personal belief. In future, he says, people could have moral positions similar to those today, but based on different authorities than in the past. "Think of it in search terms. Where will people go? What kinds of questions will they ask?" he said. "If they will lead to different beliefs, who knows? But the process of looking has changed."

What do you think? Do you sense that science is taking over from reason or religion as the preferred way for people to justify moral decisions?

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- Reverend Dr. Miranda Threlfall-Holmes is Chaplain and Solway Fellow of University College, Durham. As a historian, she has published work on late medieval monastic history and the medieval economic history of the North East of England, notably “Monks and Markets” (Oxford University Press, 2005). Her current research interests are the history of the doctrine of the Trinity, and women’s issues in the contemporary church. She is a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, and a committee member for the group Women and the Church.

International Women’s Day on March 8, is an important opportunity for us to reflect on the fact that women are still taken less seriously than men all around the world. Even in supposedly equal cultures such as my own in the UK women continue, for example, to be paid less than men for the same work, and to suffer pregnancy-related discrimination in employment. Women are disproportionately under-represented in government and on the boards of large corporations. Women’s sport is generally less well funded and less popular than men’s, whilst women’s contribution to art and literature has a tendency to be marginalised - as “chick lit,” for example.

Of course, viewing women as of lesser value than men has a long history. We cannot expect such deeply held cultural stereotypes to be overturned instantly. But it does worry me that some people in our culture seem to believe that we have eradicated sexism from our society, and that further progress is therefore at best unnecessary, at worst signs of a suspicious “feminist agenda” aiming not for equality, but for superiority for women.

Just because we (thankfully) have laws in place for gender equality and against discrimination, does not mean that the fight for equality is over. Underlying attitudes and assumptions about men and women are much harder to change. The sexism that we are barely aware of, or accept as being “just the way things are”, is an extremely powerful disincentive to change.

It is a sad fact that for many people, the male is still seen as the norm for humanity, and the female as deviant from the norm. Even where this is not intended as a value judgement, it remains an insidious underlying assumption of a great deal of day to day activity and discourse. For example, medical trials are often based on men alone except for specific “female complaints.”

In the church, the debate over women’s ordination provides a good example of how the male is still seen as normative. In Christian theology, it is axiomatic that God is neither male nor female. Yet persistently over history God has been normalised as male, and men have therefore been seen as closer to God than women.

In arguments against women’s ordination as priests or bishops in the Church of England today, claims are still made that only men can represent Christ. Yet Christ in Christian theology is the ultimate representative human being, not the ultimate representative man.

Otherwise women would be excluded from the message of salvation, which is both absurd and offensive. Claims are also made that the weight of historical tradition means that women should not be ordained - an argument for never changing anything. Or that nothing should change until the worldwide Catholic and Orthodox churches all change together. But an international day like this shows us that the world never changes together or at once. Different cultures have very different starting points, and different issues of pressing concern.

But in all our cultures around the world, even the most apparently “developed,” things have not changed enough for women. For the benefit of women, men, girls and boys, we still need to strive towards full gender equality of opportunity, so that each individual may be free to reach their full potential and make their full contribution to society. What a waste - in Christian terms, what a sin - to settle for anything less.