If God had meant to convey the idea of long ages, He could easily have used a number of other Hebrew words and phrases to convey that idea. All the ancients were already familiar with the concept of long ages of evolutionary change in their various nature religions. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. Furthermore, the order of events in Genesis flagrantly contradicts the order assigned by evolutionary astronomers and geologists in well over a dozen ways. Although there are many, many references to creation throughout the Bible, there is no hint anywhere of long ages before man's creation.
Nature makes everything in vain.
So natural selection seems smart to those who see only the surviving products, but as a design process it is idiotic. And the raw brutality of the process is offensive. However, this means repudiating the evolutionary age system, and to many Christian intellectuals, this costs too much. Further, they have also noted that the Bible does not comment on the exact origin of species as described today. 6 Most Christian colleges and seminaries today, as well as most Christian student organizations, Christian family ministries, and even some Christian apologetics and creation-oriented organizations would agree with that position.