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I have a simpler, kind of "cop out" response to the whole thing. We don't know what kind of mechanisms the Creator used to seed this planet with life. The world changes, and we've seen evolution in living species.
The only problem I have with the theory of evolution as it is taught today is that it leaves no room for a deliberate design. If we can't know the mechanisms of a creator, how can we discount such an entity's actions or planned interference? Yet the theory, as I've seen it espoused, is as vehemently anti-religious as many religious people are anti-evolution.
I see no reason why both can't hold a kernel of truth. I also see no reason why they are diametrically opposed, as pure theories. The application of those theories and the attitudes and actions of the people espousing them are what seem to be at odds.
In the conclusion of The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin said,
"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. "
Basically, I follow this line of thought, but leave it open for others to form their own conclusions. And, I don't see that as opting out on God. If He can create, he can influence, guide, alter... If I believe in a living planet, I believe in a living God.
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