What a shrill little rant this is. Asimov is demonizing his enemies as much as much as any cultist, and more than the vast majority of preachers in this country. In so doing, he completely undercuts his credibility as one who might explain the merits of evolutionary theory. It's not enough to be right, one also has to have a clue.Your take:
Oh, the sky is bloody falling. This is Asimov's Global Warming theory.
I don't think Asimov actually believed there was much of a chance the creationists were really likely to establish an Iranian-mullah theocracy in this country, although he mentions cases in which an organized few have come to power. (He might also have mentioned Lenin's boast along the lines that, when he came to Russia, political power was laying about in the streets waiting for someone to pick it up. There can be times like that.)
He's mostly telling us what kind of knuckle-dragging, drooling worldview animates the people who would tell us what the "real science" is and what they would bring us to if they could. No, it isn't likely that they can, but who wants to risk it?
No, it isn't. Whatever I thought I was going to quote, I made a mess of it.
It was an ongoing theme of his. He was well aware that civilization (which he probably felt was safe in the hands of scientists) was a very thin layer of society, and very fragile. His all-time favorite story, Nightfall, involved Luddites storming an observatory.