#13 David Lorimer - EXAMINING THE ASSUMPTIONS OF WESTERN SCIENCE

Are our scientific assumptions justified?

In this episode we’re going to be examining the assumptions of Western Science.
All science is based on assumptions. In order to isolate systems in experiments and standardise measurements of the target data, other variables need to be pinned down so scientists can form precise mathematical models, that can then be repeated accurately in the peer review process. Today we’re going to look at these assumptions, and establish if they indeed have become standard, fixed and unquestioned as some critics claim.

One of those critics is Cambridge educated biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who gave a TED talk in 2013 about the assumptions of western science, which was banned by TED’s anonymous board of scientific advisors for not being a ‘fair description of scientific assumptions’. Far from quieting the controversy, the ban caused outcries of censorship, and the ripped video was seen many millions of times on You Tube, probably many times more than had it been left to stand as one scientists opinion. Today I want to examine just how fair his description was.

To help us examine his claims is one of Rupert’s old friends and supporters, a specialist in the history and philosophy of science, an author and the program director of the Scientific and Medical Network, David Lorimer. He is also President of Wrekin Trust and Chief Consultant of Character Education Scotland.  He is also a former President of the Swedenborg Society, and Vice-President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. Originally a merchant banker then a teacher of philosophy and modern languages at Winchester College, he is the author and editor of over a dozen books, most recently ‘The Protein Crunch’ (with Jason Drew) and ‘A New Renaissance’, and out this year his new book ‘a quest for wisdom’. He is the originator of the Inspire-Aspire Values Poster Programmes, which this year involved over 25,000 young people.

What we discuss in this episode:
00:00 Compulsory philosophy and death
07:32 Examining Rupert Sheldrake’s 10 claimed assumptions of western science 
09:10 The ‘Life and nature are mechanistic’ assumption
19:30 The ‘Matter is unconscious’ assumption
29:40 ‘The laws of nature are constant’ assumption
38:26 The Galileo Commission - get everyone to look though the telescope
43:00 Reality is relational not relative - Apilla Colorado and Leroy Little bear
44:45 The ‘Nature is Purposeless’ assumption - teleology
52:30 ‘Biological heredity is only physical’ and ‘memory is in your Brain’ assumptions
55:00 Morphogenetic fields and memories of previous lives and birthmarks
1:01:45 ‘Your mind is in your head, your consciousness is correlated to your brain activity’ assumption
1:02:55 The brain as a possible filter or transducer of consciousness - William James and F.C.S.Schiller, Henri Bergson, Frederic W.H. Myers
1:05:30 ‘Psychic phenomena and telepathy are impossible’ assumption
1:09:00 You can’t have impossible experiences VS non-reproducibility in the lab
1:14:20 Resistance to evidence base due to a priori assumptions here mentioned

​PART 2:
1:22:00 ‘Thinking Beyond the Brain’ David Lorimer
1:28:00 Irreducibility wave level primacy to particle level or vice versa
1:33:50 The Scientific and Medical Network - widening and deepening the scope of science beyond reductionalism 
1:37:30 A ‘flip’ from outside in to inside out perspective, Jeff Kripal 
1:41:00 Scientific discovery appropriation by the New Age
1:45:30 3rd person science has to assume 1st person perspective to gather data
1:51:00 Criticism of SMN for trying to include spirituality in a scientific context
1:56:00 The weaponisation of the term ‘Pseudoscience’, Susan Gerbistch’s curating of Wikipedia’s entries of psi research and alternative medicine 
1:59:00 ‘A Quest for Wisdom’ David Lorimer 

References:
Rupert Sheldrake ‘Science set free’ https://www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Rupert-Sheldrake-audiobook/dp/B0095PE1M4
David Lorimer ‘A Quest for Wisdom’ https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Wisdom-Inspiring-Purpose-Path/dp/191350476X
David Lorimer ‘Thinking Beyond the Brain’ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4293876-thinking-beyond-the-brain
The Galileo Commission - get everyone to look though the telescope https://galileocommission.org/
The Scientific and Medical Network https://scientificandmedical.net/
‘Beyond the Brain’ Conference, produced by SMN and IONS https://2021.beyondthebrain.org/
David’s podcast Imaginal Inspirations https://galileocommission.org/the-imaginal-inspirations-podcast-david-lorimer/
Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker - ‘memories and birthmarks’ The division of perceptual studies, University of Virginia https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/our-research/children-who-report-memories-of-previous-lives/fifty-years-of-research/

FOR THE MANY MORE REFERENCES FROM THIS EPISODE PLEASE VISIT:
https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-13-assumptions-of-science-david-lorimer

Видео #13 David Lorimer - EXAMINING THE ASSUMPTIONS OF WESTERN SCIENCE канала Chasing Consciousness Podcast