According to Judeo-Christian tradition this was Adam.
Evolutionary theory is surprisingly compatible (excerpts):
The evidence is overwhelming that this earth is extremely old (in terms of human years), that organisms have been living and dying on the earth during its billions of years, that our planet’s diverse life forms are related by means of historical descent through time—with early species giving rise to later ones—and that the physical development of humankind is part of this story. The catalogue of facts supporting these conclusions is enormous, with contributions coming from thousands of honest men and women in a wide variety of scientific specialties over many, many years.
Often the term “creationist” is used carelessly, as if its meaning is self-evident. Thus a creationist is commonly thought to be one who believes in a divine Creator, and creationism is the designation for a religious person’s political stand. This notion is reinforced by the fact that creationism is nearly always positioned as the antithesis of evolution. Thus, a false dichotomy has been born, and creationism/evolution joins the ranks of white/black, good/evil, and theism/atheism as mutually exclusive alternatives at opposite ends of a single continuum. This polarization is not helpful.
Unfortunately, many commonly assume that evolutionary theory operates on the premise of the absence of a Creator. This is not true. No data generated by chemistry, biology, earth sciences such as geology and paleontology, or other related academic disciplines either validate or invalidate the conclusion that a divine Creator exists. Theological questions are outside the realm of science. True, some evolutionary scientists are atheists, but many others adhere to their religious faiths and maintain a strong belief in God.
The mistaken conflation of evolution and atheism is a result of a popular belief during the latter 19th century (after Darwin presented the case for natural selection as the mechanism for evolutionary change) that science and religion were at odds with each other, irreconcilable enemies destined to fight for the souls of men. The truth is that scientists, evolutionary biologists included, have neither the means nor (generally speaking) a motive to discount, invalidate, or repudiate religious faith.
So, nowadays, although they argue about the details of what controls the rates or pattern of evolution, almost all biologists accept that extinction and evolution have taken place, and that Darwinian natural selection is the major mechanism underlying them. There is nothing in this that necessarily contradicts a belief in God or even in Divine intervention, for the record in the rocks could be interpreted as a testament to the way in which God chose to create the natural world.
Q: If evolution is valid, does that mean that life originated “by chance”?
A: Let’s rephrase the question. “Could life have originated without the hand of God?” I believe the answer is no. “Could God have employed a mechanism for creation that depended on the random behavior of molecules and other probabilistic biochemical and biological events, confident that the outcome would beas he envisioned?” I believe the answer is yes. God would not have needed to intervene at each stage of the creation process in order to insure the eventual appearance of living organisms on the earth.
I believe that if, during the early stages of the primeval earth, the Creators left matter to act for itself, its activity, though random, would still be predictable and its outcome foreseeable, at least in general outline. Viewed in this way, evolution is not an accidental or fortuitous process, but an inevitable one. Given a set of elements from which to construct molecules, cells, tissues, and organisms, and given air, water, and rock as environments in which organisms can live, evolution will fashion lungs and gills—wings, fins, and feet. Living things reflect both the properties of their raw matter and their environment. Thus the assembly of life, even a self-assembly, could not be totally capricious. I expect that if we were able to go elsewhere in the universe and study the history of life on other planets with conditions similar to earth’s, we would find evidence for sets of organisms remarkably similar to those that have inhabited this planet. Evolution will have mainly achieved there what it has here.
The time of creation has ever been a subject of much comment and dispute. Yet I challenge anybody to produce from the Bible itself any finite limitation whatsoever of the periods of creation. By strained inferential references and interpretations men have sought to set the time in days or periods of a thousand years, but I feel that no justification of such limitations is warranted by the scriptures themselves. If the evolutionary hypothesis of the creation of life and matter in the universe is ultimately found to be correct, I shall neither be disappointed nor displeased if it will turn out so to be.
In my humble opinion the Biblical account is sufficiently comprehensive to include the whole of the process . . . If you will take the counsel of one who loves science and reveres religion, permit me to admonish you: Never close your mind or your heart; ever keep them open to the reception of both knowledge and spiritual impressions. Both true science and true religion are the exponents of truth. Their fields are different, their provinces are distinct, but their purposes are identical—to enlighten man, to give him power, to make him good, and bring him joy.