I wish we had a Gallup poll on this question. I think that with the
adverse publicity about things like Kansas, Dayton etc. the rest of the
world is getting more converts one way or the other. There is also
more home schooling than ever; most of it by YECs. So expect this
issue to become even more strident in the next generation, maybe
even approaching the controversy about slavery before the Civil War.
If the ASA wrings its hands about this -- what about the general
scientific community? They are even more clueless about what to do.
If all science is theory-laden, it is defenseless. The kind of
relativism implicit in YEC ("there are two religious views, creation and
evolution, both based on faith") fits comfortably into the postmodern
culture, of which it is a part.
This is indeed the age of irony, the twists and turns of which
would make a 21st-century historian's head spin.
Paul Arveson