As a political issue, irrelevant.
But as a moral/metaphysical issue, highly fascinating. It is our best attempt at explaining our origins. Certainly a question that's well worth asking. Whether or not it should become a political football, well, that's another question. I think that we should be honest about what we teach kids in school, and leave the proselytizing at the door.
My take on evolution and natural selection is that it obviously isn't a testable scientific theory in the traditional sense. We can't go back in time and directly observe genetic shifts in the development of the species, so what we're left with here is a metaphysical theory of development. The gaps in the history of our development are particularly difficult to explain. But yet the theory has a lot of practical applications. In fact, because of Darwin, our knowledge of genetics and biology in general has grown exponentially. For example, an explanation of why some bacteria adapt to certain anti-biotics like penicillin whereas others don't would be incomplete without an understanding of the theory of natural selection. The theory allows us to study adaptation to a new environment in a clear and rational way. It suggests an element of adaptation, and it gives us the ability to actually study it in detail.
Darwinism, as modern biology understands it, is natural selection theory backed up by Medellian heredity. Put together, this can be a powerful explanatory tool. Basically, mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool is the result of our biological origins, as we've been able to decode through our DNA. Evolution is another component of Darwinism. This states that all life on Earth evolved from a few primitive one celled organisms, maybe even one organism. Over time, life developed into more complex organisms as the environment changed. It is a very broad theory with a lot of gaps, but from a metaphysical standpoint, it makes sense, irrespective of whether you think God was the prime driver in adaptation or not.
We might never get the science because the theory isn't testable, but then again, all scientific theories are merely based on conjecture, even those that have passed very rigorous tests. We are limited by our understanding of the universe to this very time and place only. In short, it is very hard to get our hands on the exact truth because our powers of observation are very limited to a few variables. In our attempts to devise rational explanations for the natural phenomenon, we can be very reductionist in our approaches. The truth is far more complex than our current knowledge of science can fathom. That's why we should endeavor to discover and grow our knowledge in these fields.
