When I was a kid, with a child's imagination, I read the creation of Adam and Eve literally. I envisioned an actual talking snake and wondered what the fruit looked like.
Now that I have grown in my understanding of the universe (ie it is actually very old, as evidenced, for one, by measureable background cosmic radiation), I don't read the story the same way. I don't deconstruct it, saying it is valid that God created the universe, but then attack the elements of the story that seem childish (talking snakes). I have grown to believe that there are multiple levels of truth in the bible, and that it is a hyper-linked text, meaning that every verse relates to every other verse. Nothing can be taken out of context, because it is oozing context out of every pore.
Here is an amazing graphic... this is the hyperlinking of the bible.

"The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect."

Anyone who says these stories are obsolete now that we understand the scientific method doesn't know what they are talking about. There is a whole lot more to the picture.
As far as evidence pointing to evolution vs. instant creation: Look outside the bible, to creation itself. The bible is NOT a scientific paper; yet it reflects the same universal truths that science endeavors to understand.