Parents of children in New York are doubtless grateful to the bureaucrats huddled at the city's Department of Education, labouring to protect them from the real world beyond the school fence. Heaven forbid that their young minds should be sullied by such notions as crime, death or birthdays.

1. Brian Cox (PI: 78)

Oxford University held its first debate on the subject of evolution in 1860, just months after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Then, the Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce, famously enquired of the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley whether it was through his grandmother or his grandfather that he traced his descent from a monkey.

Survival of the fittest...or just lucky?

Our species is still evolving, but future humans might be more like Danny DeVito than Stuart Broad. Olly Bootle explains why

"This book is necessary," as its author argues, in part because 44 per cent of Americans think "God created human beings" within the last 10,000 years.

What would the world be like without faith? Many religious figures argue that it would become morally bankrupt. Richard Dawkins, world-famous evolutionary biologist and noted public champion of atheism, disagrees.

The moose can boast an impressive array of accomplishments. In this entertaining survey of the animal’s place in history and culture, we learn that it provided Chipewyan tribes with “parchment, leather, lines and cords … thread and glue … handles … spoons … tools … gowns, firebags, mittens, moccasins, and trousers”. All this and food.

If all species were designed, it was hardly by someone intelligent

We flatter ourselves that the witch-hunt is something that has long been alien to these shores. We are, we protest, a tolerant nation, where a thousand flowers are permanently in bloom. The trials of Salem were a New World phenomenon, as was McCarthyism, with its "are you now or have you ever been..." a Red under the patriotic US bed. Then we are brought up short, or we should be, by the resignation of Professor Michael Reiss, director of education at the venerable Royal Society.

The scientist who said creationism should be discussed in science lessons has left his job at the Royal Society. Professor Michael Reiss stepped down yesterday as the Royal Society's director of education following remarks he made last week at the British Association for the Advancement of Science suggesting that creationism should be included in science lessons.

We think of it as the most natural of activities. Yet sex, as a method for perpetuating a species, is remarkably inefficient and has huge biological costs. Steve Connor explores a scientific mystery

To mark a double anniversary celebrating Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, his supporters are taking the fight to their opponents

`The vast majority of newborns face the same appalling child mortality rates as our ancestors'