Of course they can, argues physicist and theologian Karl Giberson, if only many believers were more sophisticated and atheists less dogmatic.

Many of us who write on scientific issues have our work distorted by others, but that doesn't mean we should retract our words, says Michael Hopkin.

Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism. The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn't science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.

The earliest ancestors of old-world monkeys, apes and humans had surprisingly small brains, a new study shows. This finding - based on a newly described fossil skull - means that large brains evolved independently in new- and old-world primates. It also suggests that evolutionary anthropologists may have to rethink some cherished theories about why such big, powerful brains evolved.

When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.