"A 2017 Gallup creationism survey found 38% of adults in the United States held the view that "God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" when asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings, which Gallup noted was the lowest level in 35 years."
and according to this[1], globally 50% of protestant leaders are biblical literalists (generally associated with young earth beliefs)
[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2011/06/22/global-survey-of-evangeli...
Those two are not the same thing! That's the entire topic of this thread!
> young earth creationism is definitely a mainstream view nationally in the US
Your data does not back up that sentence.
> are biblical literalists (generally associated with young earth beliefs)
Again, not necessarily.
This reinforces my statement about people looking to rationalize beliefs. I think we all do this. No one can possibly prove all of the statements they believe to be true. Hence a lot of times one engages in a knee jerk reaction to contradictory evidence to seek out whatever plausible explanation one can think of.
People often times argue about what could be true instead of seeking out what is true.