The "Controversy" we currently have is a contrived controversy. It is manufactured and perpetuated by those on both sides of the argument for one reason- financial gain. They sell a lot of books and get big money for speaking engagements to perpetuate this controversy. Those who use science as an argument FOR OR AGAINST religion are misapplying science. Science studies the Natural World. Religion is a study of the SUPERNatural world (meaning beyond or separate from nature). Both areas of study are valid, which one you feel is MOST VALUABLE is purely a personal decision.
Evolution is in no way a threat to any religious belief, it is simply a tool (and the best one we currently have) to explain what we see in our natural Biotic (living) world and make predictions about what we could/will see. That is what theories are, explanations that offer predictive abilities. I will be the 1st to admit that there are weaknesses with our current understanding of Evolution, but Darwinian evolution is no longer what "Evolution" is. Darwin was the 1st scientist (or at least the 1st with significant amounts of supporting evidence) to propose Evolution via Natural Selection, but his explanation was limited because there was no understanding of the genetics, mutations, symbiotic relationships, viral activity which can change organisms genome, and Epigenetics. Many of these areas of study are in their infancy, and we continue to learn more about them daily.
It is irrational to expect science to have a complete answer, there will never be a complete answer to such a complex problem, but overall our CURRENT understanding of Evolution provides a very good working model that has powerful predictive ability, which again is all a theory is. The Theory of Gravity is not even a complete/finished theory. There are problems with it. It works fine here on earth (meaning has a strong predictive ability) and near large mass items, but the acceleration due to gravity starts to change inexplicably as objects move very great distances from known objects with mass.
