Nobody challenges modern biology when we come up with a new vaccine, crop or technology. Few bat an eye when the human genome project discovers a gene for an inherited disease. Yet when the same data point to our inescapable link to the rest of the biosphere, feathers fly. Creationist attacks on science are unfortunate. Religion has been far too important a force for good to be squandered in a competition with science that it cannot win.
History amply shows that science is the only reliable mechanism for understanding natural phenomena.
Many find science's discoveries difficult or their import troubling. Better for religion to devote its considerable capital providing context for these discoveries, as the Pope has tried to do, by addressing true nuggets such as the ethics of altering the human germline and preserving earth's biodiversity. Let's get on with it, and stop creating pointless confrontations where none should exist.