Robert Rowthorn, an economics professor at Cambridge University, said studies showed that more religious people tended to have more children.

Lord May, the president of the British Science Association, said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again.

Speaking on the eve of the association’s annual conference, the committed atheist said he was worried the world was on a “calamitous trajectory” brought on by its failure to co-ordinate measures against global warming.

He said that no country was prepared to take the lead and a “punisher” was needed to make sure the rules of co-operation were not broken.

The former Government chief scientific advisor said in the past that was God and it might be time again for religion to fill the gap.

The revelation that everything in the Bible may not have happened exactly as written can be startling. And when the discovery comes along with scientific evidence of evolution and the actual age of planet Earth, it can prompt a full-blown spiritual crisis.

That’s where Francis Collins would like to step in. A renowned geneticist and former director of the Human Genome Project, Collins is also an evangelical Christian, and he has spent years establishing the compatibility between science and religious belief. [video]

The day after the Church of England issued an “apology” for having “misunderstood” the work of Charles Darwin, the Vatican has announced that it will organise a debate on the thorny question of Christian belief and the theory of evolution.

Michael Reiss, a biologist and ordained Church of England clergyman, agreed to step down from his position with the national academy of science after its officers decided that his comments had damaged its reputation.

His resignation comes after a campaign by senior Royal Society Fellows who were angered by Professor Reiss’s suggestion that science teachers should treat creationist beliefs “not as a misconception but as a world view”.

Professor Michael Reiss, director of education for the Royal Society, said banning creationism from the classroom could backfire at a time of growing religious fundamentalism.

Professor Reiss, a Church of England minister and former biology teacher, said he strongly believed in teaching the theory of evolution to children.

But rather than dismiss creationism as wrong or stupid, teachers should be prepared to discuss it as another ‘worldview’.