Who said that humans are not merely “nothing more than the incredibly complex interactions between DNA and [their] environment” and that “[t]he result of these interactions is determined solely by the laws of physics and chemistry”? Do you believe that economics or specifically Austrian economics assumes that humans freely choose?
The time preference of the tree and the ends of the tree and the ends of the fruit-eating animals and the choice between certain ends and et cetera are all regulated via the mechanisms of natural selection. If you assume that humans freely choose their own actions, then the ends of humans and the time preference of humans and et cetera are all regulated via their own mind that was organized via natural selection. However, if you do not assume that humans freely choose their own actions, then the ends of humans and the time preference of humans and et cetera are all regulated directly via natural selection. Does whether you assume free choice or whether you do not assume free choice change economics?
An analogy can be perfect. So, how can some thing be “just an analogy”? I think that you mean that “this is a very interesting metaphor, but as has already been said, it is just a metaphor.”
How? You cannot analyze evolution unless you analyze evolution via teleology.