Outspoken atheists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss engaged in an unmoderated dialogue in front of a packed Memorial Auditorium on Sunday, discussing science education in the 21st Century.

The pair was primarily concerned about the rise of religiously motivated threats to traditional scientific curricula in American high schools, as well as the inaccurate portrayal of scientific information in the media.

Dawkins, chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, discussed a variety of concerns surrounding evolution, religion and the public backlash against science. He debated methods of changing the public mindset with Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

Dawkins and Krauss held that teaching young children about religion in Sunday School is equivalent to “child abuse.” Krauss, however, said that it was possible for evolution and natural selection to co-exist with religion, while Dawkins said that his goal was to destroy religion.

Both scholars, however, felt that science should be taught in schools more comprehensively, without a religious agenda. They asserted that Darwinism is a “fact” and said that evolution was as much of a fact as the existence of the table on the stage on which they were speaking.

Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book, “The Selfish Gene,” which popularized a gene-centered view of evolution. His latest work, “The God Delusion,” was an international bestseller.

Krauss lectures widely on science and public policy, and he appears regularly on commentaries for national publications, radio and television. An open letter he sent to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, urging the pontiff not to build new walls between science and faith, sparked international controversy.