Thanks for posting this, mark, it's interesting.
I think that some conclusions are warranted, but some others may not be.
For instance - I don't think one could say that (YE) creationism is going up long term. That last data point is no higher than several points farther back, and is only 2% higher than the first point.
I do think that one could say that TE is going down (with the caveat below), because that last point, at 32, is lower than it has ever been, over 11 separate polls.
As much as I'd like to say so, I don't think we can say that atheistic materialism is holding steady. Even if we were to ignore the highest point at 16, and stick with 15 for the most recent data, and compare that to an average of 10 for everything before the year 2000, then that's up by 50% over the last decade. If YEC or TE increased that fast (say, from an average of 40% to an average of 60% in just 10 years), we'd be rightly amazed by the rapid shift.
OK, but what about more speculative thoughts?
It seems to me that the data points from 2012 don't fit the previous data, which showed largly stagnation between YEC and TE. Is this the start of a trend, or something else?
My first response to that question is that this is likely just noise. We've seen from before that there is plenty of noise in data on this issue.
(A)
A second, and more speculative response is to notice that the most recent data points were taken at the height of the gay marriage issue, around when Obama was on TV changing his view to now support gay marriage, and the military has just changed to allow openly gay soldiers, and all that was all over the opinion sections, with person after person changing their view to now accept open homosexuals.
I wonder if some Christians were, at that time, struggling with the gay issue, and deciding to accept homosexuals, and felt the internal need to reaffirm their commitment to tradition by answering the pollster's question about origin in more traditional way? (B)
Or, third, maybe mark is right that people are moving towards YEC from TE? (C)
I expect that the next few data points, over the next few years, will show us which of those is most likely.
If A is right, the next few data points will look more like those from the mid-2000's - a return to the long term average.
If B, the next few data points may look more like those from the mid-2000's, or show YEC down and TE steady (as may be suggested by ignoring that most recent point on each line).
If C, then the next few data points will see YEC up (maybe breaking 50%?), and TE will continue down (maybe going under 30%?).
Blessings everyone-
Papias