A recent post on timesandseasons.org concerns the compatibility between the "myth of evolution" and the "myth of Christianity".  Perhaps a better word would be "mythos" rather than myth.    The following is a comment I posted:

 Part of the difficulty in discussing a "myth of evolution" is the ambiguity in the word "evolution" itself. The broadest definition is simply "change in the population of various species over time", which is clearly observed in the fossil record.  A narrower definition adds the assertion that certain species were ancestral to certain other species, a more difficult proposition to prove, since we lack DNA evidence connecting fossils, and there are no family history records that can be used to determine ancestral connections.  So the claim that one species is ancestral to another is an assertion that can never be proved with certainty.  Every time a new primate species is found in the fossil record, a controversy erupts over whether the species was an ancestor of homo sapiens or one of the dead ends with no modern descendants, like Neanderthal man. 

A further assertion is part of an even narrower definition of evolution, that the asserted (though always tentative) ancestral connections took place through random variations in the genomes of the ancestral species that produced differential survival and reproduction that passed along the previously rare variation so that it became dominant in the descendants, and that an accumulation of such variations resulted in the clearly distinct descendant species.  This is the modern synthesis of Darwinian natural selection with the genetic mechanism that was first suggested by Mendel. 

One of the points that is almost universally glossed over in textbook introductions to this last version of "evolution" is that this mechanism of evolution cannot, by definition, operate to make inanimate matter turn into living matter.  There is absolutely no proven theory to explain how the transition took place from inanimate "primordial soup" (even with amino acids) into a living cell that can reproduce itself, and thus has a mechanism capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. 

Thus, the "myth of evolution" in any of its forms actually does not reach the crucial issue of the creation of life per se. It only is capable of addressing variations in life after it has somehow come into existence. 

A living cell is a factory that can create new factories like itself, with the ability to acquire materials and energy, and all the instructions for making and operating the components of the factory, plus a mechanism for those instructions and all of the machinery to duplicate itself in a coordinated way.  The membrance of a cell, that keeps its machinery together so that necessary chemical reactions can take place and the DNA can create the needed proteins, is not a simple balloon.  It is itself a highly complex barrier that keeps the contents of the cell inside, while allowing only certain materials pass into its interior, with very chemical-specific locks.  The DNA in the simplest cell could not come into existence through a totally random process, since the chance of getting a DNA string of even 100 nucleotides that works is on the order of one chance in 4 to the 100th power--about the number of atoms in the known universe.  Without a living cell as a vessel for the experiment, there is not a lot of time for whatever random process is generating and trying out the variations to get one that works.  And it is a chicken and egg problem from the very start, compounded by the fact that there is no known random mechanism that makes either chickens (the cell) or eggs (the DNA) independently. 

So the first problem in trying to compare the "myth of evolution" with the "myth of Christianity" is defining what the "myth of evolution" actually is. 

The idea that evolution is guided to some degree by God is quite widespread among scientists who are also religious.  One of the most well known evolutionary biologists and textbook authors is Kenneth Miller, a devout Catholic, who in his book Finding Darwin's God offers his perspective that
God's ex nihilo creation infused matter with the capacity to produce life and an efflorescence of species culminating in humanity (or something like it) that could, in its intelligence, be considered to be a being "in the image of God".  The particular meaning of Catholic views on evolution are discussed in an article by Stehen Barr, PhD, in the October 2005 First Things at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=238 .  It is also something along this line that is believed by Francis Collins, MD, PhD, leader of the Human Genome Project and author of the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. 

A variation in this belief held by some scientists who are also religious is that God directed specific mutations that were so complex they could not have arisen from random genetic variation, and they argue that random genetic variation is incapable of creating significant complex changes that must exist before natural selection by differential survival can actually operate.  Some in this group have tried to articulate their reasoning in what they call Intelligent Design theory, in which they offer purely scientific arguments that do not rely on the authority of scripture or other religious doctrine, to support the hypothesis that the most rational explanation for certain features of "life, the universe, and everything", which are highly improbable as products of random genetic variation, is that an intelligent entity, at least as intelligent as humans, had input into their creation through modification of previous species.  In the new movie "Expelled", militant atheist and Darwinian Richard Dawkins admits that what we know scientifically allows for the existence of a highly intelligent alien species playing a role in manipulating the DNA of earth's living things.  Whether that intelligent intervenor is consistent with anyone's definition of God or not is an exercise which Intelligent Design leaves for the reader.  They do NOT argue that we can deduce from the likelihood of intelligent intervention in evolution (in the broad sense) all the characteristics of the intelligence, in sufficient detail to conclude it is the God of the Trinity or any other deity. 

So unless we are absolutely clear on which "evolution" we are talkling about, and thus which "myth", we can get all sorts of different takes on how it is consistent or inconsistent with various versions of the Christian "myths" of Creation, the Fall and Redemption. 

There is no question that James Talmage and John Widtsoe thought that "evolution" in the broadest sense was a particular manifestation of a broader principle of "eternal progression", in which everything in and on the Earth is moving teleologically toward producing a world with inhabitants that will eventually in its entirety become a celestial kingdom with celestial inhabitants and a transformed geology and chemistry, such that the earth has the characteristics of a giant information appliance (a urim and thummim). 

One aspect of the Creation and Fall myths in Christianity in general and Mormonism in particular is the idea that the Fall caused the entire Earth and its plant and animal inhabitants to be transformed from an at least Terrestrial state to a Telestial one.  As I discussed in my post on Noah's Flood, I think we need to be cautious about importing more universality into the statements of Genesis than is actually there in the text.  Some Jewish believers suggest that Adam and Eve were distinct from previous hominids in having souls that originated with God.   I think it is almost as difficult to pin down what the Christian and even Mormon "myth" of Creation and the Fall really consists of . 

Thus, comparing a myth of evolution with a myth of Christianity is a complex task since there are variations and gradations in both the entities being compared.  We all walk into the discussion with our own personal views of what each myth is, but we may be talking past each other because the variation in the meaning of each myth is tremendous, and there is no necessary correlation between which myth of evolution we prefer and which myth of Christianity we like.  They are two sets which, at least for some people, have an intersection that is real and not a null set. 

So my view is that the two myths are so indefinite in specific meaning that making a comparison between them as some kind of general statement cannot be logically done.  You can only compare specific versions of the myth of evolution with specific versions of the myth of Christianity, and both sets of variations lie in a contiguous n-dimensional space with an essentially infinite number of points.