There still is, as far as I can tell. Whenever my curiosity drives me to take a psychology or philosophy class I end up with the feeling that they think part of their job is to reassure the rest of the humans that we are in fact special. It feels like some kind of leftover from when that kind of work was done by monks.
We are objectively special in creating technological civilization with all sorts of cultural artifacts like philosophy that we have no evidence for in other species that have existed on this planet, other than possibly a few of our close hominid relatives. Hominids are a very special evolutionary branch in that sense.
When we think about ETs, we're wondering about technological civilizations on other planets with space craft and radio telescopes, not the equivalent of birds or dolphins.
Really? I distinctly remember a lot of pissed off kids in my college philosophy and psychology classes trying to defend their religious beliefs and that we are more than just monkeys with fancier tools. Most of the religious folks (at least vocally) dropped out of Philosophy 101 after 2 weeks. It was incredibly entertaining. I guess this was 20 years ago, but assuming we are a more secular society I guess I thought that would still be the case.
It's a bit different at the intro level. I'm talking about the professors and the grad students. It's not that they're directly religious, but I get a status-quo-preserving kind of feeling from them. Like maybe they're influenced by a tradition of not calling your patron an ape--or somesuch.
Weird, I would think it would be much less hand-holdy at that level.
It feels more like gatekeeping: let nobody who thinks animals talk to each other call themselves a psychologist.
Hum... So, you are in full agreement with the GP?