Question: 

As you are a scientist,  I would appreciate your explanation as to how it is possible to get plants reliant on photosynthesis on the third day, before the creation of the sun on the fourth.

 Answer: Genesis 1 has night and day on the first day, but the appearance of the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day.  This is an apparent, but not a real contradiction with science.  Here is why.  I assume that the Genesis account of creation is given from the perspective of the earth itself.  If scientists are correct, then in the very early history of the earth, the atmosphere was much thicker than it is today.  Not only was it thicker, its content was quite a bit different.  It is hard to be absolutely certain about the early atmosphere, but most models have virtually zero nitrogen and oxygen, but a lot of water, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and the like.  Bottom line, for the first two billion or so years, the sun, moon and stars were not apparent from the earth because the atmosphere was opaque.  They only appeared quite a bit later in the timeline of the earth—after cyano and other bacteria gained the ability to “eat” the more reactive molecules, and to put molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen into the atmosphere.  It was only hundreds of millions of years after life appeared in the ocean (3^rd day) that the sun and the other heavenly objects appeared in the sky (4^th day).  Of course, there was morning and evening from the very beginning because the sun was there and the earth was spinning from the beginning.   As an analogy, Venus has night and day, but the heavenly objects have not yet appeared in the “sky” of Venus. So, the sun was not created on the fourth day in Genesis One.  It appeared in the sky on day four.   Obviously, the sun was there on the first day, because there was day and evening at that time.  Of course, all recognize that the literary style of Genesis One is poetic and even metaphorical, but nevertheless, the general outline there is consistent with what we know. John Oakes