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In September 1931, a panel discussion was convened at Central Hall Westminster on the subject of the ‘evolution of the universe’ at the centenary meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). The event took place at a turning point in the development of relativistic cosmology. In 1929, Hubble had published his first results supporting a distance-velocity relation, which had led to a seismic shift in relativistic cosmology: its subject was now the study of an evolving, rather than static universe. As part of the BAAS meeting, the event was directed to the general public, with an audience numbering in the thousands. The viewpoints discussed at the event therefore plausibly represent what the participants thought was worth projecting to the public as the general status of the field of relativistic cosmology at the time. In this colloquium, I will introduce the event and its significance in the history of cosmology, I will highlight some of the foundational debates taking place, and I will draw out an underappreciated connection between the newly established science of relativistic cosmology and the political aims of the BAAS.