Why assume a God at all when explaining how the diversity of life on the planet evolved? Theists have a dilemma, and that is trying to reconcile a literalist interpretation of religious books to what facts and science reveals about reality. I have suggested theists adjust their manner of interpretation and look at religious books more symbolically than literal. To my mind it will result in less inner turmoil between emotions and reason, and also allow a more substantive framework for meaning.
If you look at humans as a species, humans can alter the natural environment and create artificial environments, thereby throwing a monkey wrench into human evolution by natural selection. How did evolution, driven by natural selection, evolve a species, that is no longer under natural selection and therefore no longer under classic natural evolution? If I am selected by culture, which is not natural, I am not fully under natural selection, but under manmade selection.
This change, which the Bible says occurred 6000 year ago, coordinates with the scientific carbon dating of the invention of written language and the rise of civilization. Where did these two pivotal innovations come from, since they were not already part of the earth, as preexisting natural things, that could direct and evolve humans through natural selection?
I believe in both Evolution and Creation. Evolution is about natural things, while Creation speaks of the rise of modern man, with will and choice, who learned to alter his environment, thereby breaking the human bond to natural selection. This is what Genesis mostly discusses.
Why do we spend so much resources on hospitals and caring for the sick, when natural selection has always earmarked the sick and weak as recycled food for carnivores and predators? The answer is humans do not follow the rules of natural selection, due to will and choice. When did this change for humans? This change in natural selection, to artificial selection is called Creation; created a new paradigm.
The Bible and Genesis gives us insight into that transitional time, and addresses many of the problems that would arise when humans lost their natural and evolutionary connections; fall from paradise under evolution and natural selection. Now, selection within culture, is based on fads and money, which are not natural; does not grow on trees.
One way you resolve the contemporary problem of either creation or evolution, instead of both part of the same long term process of change, is with Relativity and time dilation. One day in the God reference, is not an earth day, unless science assumes the earth is the center of the universe and the gold standard for time, for the entire universe. Does it?
There is a thing called Relativity and time dilation. One day in the God reference, can conceptually be billions of earth years, based on the difference in time propagation for the observational earth reference. God is symbolically light and spirit. This means he should be in a reference close to the speed of light, where seconds in his reference, can take billions of years in our earth reference.
Conceptually, God could say I want plants and animals, and they will appear in his reference, almost immediately. But in the much faster earth reference, is now seems to take billion of years for evolution to come up with the modern flora and fauna. Relativity gives you more than one reference for time. God does not become man; part of earth reference, until Jesus. While a speed of light reference would be eternal in time, relative to our earth reference. The ducks are in a row.
Long slow evolution may be more a reference illusion, based on assuming the earth defines universal time. This was a manmade invention from ancient times. I thought science knew better, but maybe Relativity and time references is not taught in the specialty sciences of Biology and Geology.
The bottom line is humans are not fully under natural selection, since they can alter the environment and impose artificial selection criteria. When did this new type of new human first appear? Carbon dating and religion both seem to suggest about 6000 years ago, the human brain, advanced.
The fall from paradise was fall from natural selection, into the pitfalls of artificial selection, which then created problems over the ages even until today; man made climate change. If natural selection had been in effect for humans, all along, we would still be in paradise where time become timeless. This suggests that part of the creation of will and choice, may have been neural time reference started to speed up; fear of death. Fear, like in war, can make time appear to slow down, so we can see more detail in less time; much faster reference. Now the day and year mean more to humans.
If you are waiting for someone to call, minutes can seem to take a long time. But if you are having fun, hours can appear to pass in an instant. The brain can alter its time perception frame. The appearance time speeding up is common to fear; see more details. God warning if you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall die. This suggest fear of death appears, with loss of instinct and time perception changing, so more details appears.