Science v. Religion (Genesis 1)

Is there a way to harmonize science with Genesis 1?

Let's break the issue into more precise questions.

Is the Bible a science textbook?

On one hand, the answer is fairly easy.  No, the Bible is not a science textbook.  

That said, the Bible speaks of historical events.  Likewise, the tone of Genesis 1, at least superficially, feels "historical".  

Let's take a quick tangent and ponder the implications of the Bible speaking on scientific as well as spiritual matters.  In short, the "Bible is scientifically true".  

That is a dicey situation.  A Young Earth Creationist Christian ("YEC") means one thing by the statement, but the statement is generally completely misunderstood by a scientist.  To a scientist, science requires conducting statements to verify the accuracy of the claims.  If evidence is contrary, then the idea must be discarded.

Like it or not, there is a vast amount of evidence that the earth is lot older than a few thousand years.  If a YEC holds firm about the age of the earth being a thousand years old against the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then a scientist will conclude that YEC and perhaps Christian.  This is because the Bible's claims become the focus not of faith, but is critiqued scientifically.  Since you cannot prove or disprove the existence of supernatural entities through natural (scientific) experiments, because the supernatural exists outside of the natural.

On one hand, the beliefs of the YEC might be helpful to remove the dichotomy of science v. religion, but I think the YEC mindset underestimates the problem it creates for people outside of Christianity.

Did we evolve?

I have no idea.  

A few possibilities come to mind when I ponder this.

1. God created all life via evolution.
2. God re-created life in greater complexity.  For instance, the creation of life outlined in Genesis 1 happened multiple times during the span of billions of years.
3. God created everything else by evolution, but for humanity, a unique creative event happened.
4. Jumping ahead to Genesis 2, God created (or directed the evolution of) multiple strains of humanity.  

At this point, I just want to bang my head against the wall.

I find a lot of different mindsets and misunderstandings from various Christians.  These are:

1.  If we evolved from monkeys, then we are monkeys.  We are not monkeys, so we did not evolve from monkeys.

This perspective actually misunderstands what evolutionary models even say.

2.  Evolution is tantamount to atheism.  

This is more of an implicit assumption and usually focuses on the gaps of the fossil record or the statistics required for evolution to happen.  Proponents generally overlook the possibility that perhaps "God directed evolution".  This would not have been a problem for God.

What about the scientific claims?

I do have some problems of the general scientific approach.

First, there is an underlying assumption that there is no involvement by God.  On one hand, it is so persuasive that is impossible to begin to look for alternatives.  That said, science by definition intentionally excludes supernatural elements.  So, this assumption should not surprise anyone.

Second, cladograms (evolutionary family trees) can be presumptive with statements what our ancestors looked like.