10.29.08
What happened to academia? Where on earth are the Kantians?
In all these debates over ID, and now the brain/mind question, it is always between extremists, the narrowest of scientific behaviorists and near-fundamentalist Christians. Why on earth is the debate so dominated by these two groups? The academic world is filled with a score of scientific, and especially humanist disciplines that could contribute to the discussion. Are there no philosohers who could at least present the history of dualism from Descartes, etc…?
The reality is that these disciplines are operating behind a wall of silence, since they know perfectly well that their discourses don’t really square with Darwinization or behaviorism, and that, so far, and contrary to the case with Dawkins rooting out fairy tales, they are ‘safe’ behind the walls of their disciplines, public be damned.
And they know what would happen if they spoke up. The ‘loons’ at science blogs, figures like Myers, and the cohorts of attack dogs, would put their academic careers at risk.
Since we mention Kant here a lot, one might ask, where on earth are the Kant scholars in all these debates.
And no, Kant was NOT a Darwinist, and he had a distinctly profound discourse on the issues of the post-Descartes culture we have inherited.
And yet we hear nothing from these grourps.
The job is left to outsiders, as with this blog.
And these ‘asphyxiators’, ID or Darwinist, know well the falseness of their position, and are absolutely paranoid about the outer culture that they can only dominate with deceptions.
It’s a telling statistic, this blog has had almost 13000 posts, and yet it has never had a single link from Science Blogs, or the ID sites. Such people won’t even exchange an email, or respond in any way to an outsider. Each side is desperate to reduce the debate to the ‘two alternatives’, failing the hope of reducing it all to a single outcome, theirs. Anyone else doesn’t exist.
Moral: if you want to get to the bottom of these issues, you are on your own.