The Scientific and Medical Network - Australia is a website (smn.org.au) serving as a portal for local (Australian) members of The Scientific and Medical Network (”SMN (UK)”, based in the U.K).

The SMN Membership comprises scientists, medical professionals and discerning thinkers who question and investigate beyond the standard Western (Classical-Newtonian) world-view.

Disclaimer

The Sydney (Australia) group is an autonomous group of members and their guests, meeting together for lectures and discussions. We are not a formal part of the Network. This website (www.smn.org.au), while echoing the objectives and principles of The Scientific and Medical Network, is not an official voice of the Network and the content does not represent the policies or principles of the Network.

In particular,

Aims

The aims of our local group (in alignment with SMN, copied verbatim from here) are:

• To provide a safe forum for the critical and open minded discussion of ideas that go beyond conventional paradigms in science, medicine and philosophy
• To integrate intuitive insights with rational analysis in our investigations
• To encourage a respect for Earth and community which emphasizes a spiritual and holistic approach
• To challenge the adequacy of “scientific materialism” as an exclusive basis for knowledge and values

Approach

Our group (in alignment with the approach of SMN) seeks to “provide a forum for pursuing truth, wherever it leads, to widen the intellectual horizons of science and of society as a whole; to stimulate research at the frontiers of human knowledge and experience, and to make the results of such research more widely known through its educational programmes.” We are “committed to no dogma or creed” and encourage intellectual discernment and are wary of the ill-founded and sensational claims of ‘pseudo-science’. By “asking searching questions about the nature of life and the role of the human being,” we seek to abide by the guidelines of “open-mindedness, rigourous thinking and care for others at all times.”

SMN-Australia Areas of Interest

Our interests echo those of SMN members throughout the world. The following are a sample of topics covered by SMN (UK) publications, courses and conferences:

• Theories of consciousness
• Mind-body medicine
• Philosophy of science and religion
• Quantum physics
• Systems thinking
• Transpersonal psychology
• Parapsychology
• Ecology and human futures