Voyager I

[Tenet Nosce]

The scientific method, for example, asserts that knowledge may only be obtained through empirical observations by our senses, or technological extensions of them. Thus, it intrinsically denies that nonrational modes of thought, like intuition, can lead us to knowledge.

Your conclusion is faulty. In almost every case, the investigator made use of their intuition to form a hypothesis. The investigator, would of course openly acknowledge that fact. Thus using the rational faculty to flesh out the intuited notion, there is something gained in actual experience. And thus, intuition indeed leads to knowledge using the scientific method.

The premise might be a bit faulty, but the conclusion is sound. You seem to be conflating the scientific method with axiomatics.

In axiomatics, intuition plays a large role in the development of axioms, from which propositions are derived using logic. The propositions are then proved/disproved, which adds or subtracts credibility to the axiom(s).

In pure scientific method, hypotheses are derived from characterizations, which include definitions, observations, and measurements. Little room for intuition there.

To be termed "scientific", a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. Thus, the scientific method is a branch of natural philosophy which can be traced back through historical personages like Lord Kelvin (notorious for bombastically false prognostications of scientific knowledge, such as xrays were a hoax, flying machines were impossible, and radio had no future), Francis Bacon, Decartes, Newton, Hippocrates, Aristotle, to Thales. Thales, of course, being the Greek philosopher that set our minds to looking for "natural causes" to observable phenomena rather that making an appeal to the supernatural, or the gods.

Notions of intuitive knowledge have been passed down to us through the Pythagorean lineage of philosophy which places more value on knowledge derived from mysticism, intuition, and states of consciousness beyond our normal sense perception. These ideas have been passed down to us through Plato, to the Hermeticists, Paracelsus, Idealists, Leibniz, Pascal, to the Theosophists.

Incidentally, the ideas of metempsychosis (reincarnation) and vitalism (on which acupuncture and energetic healing is based) come down to us through the latter branch of philosophy. Which plays directly into why modern Western medicine, which is decidedly in the empiricist camp, is loathe to concede any potential value to these ideas.

To be fair, Western medicine is right to criticize claims that these kinds of ideas are "scientific". They're really not scientific at all. IMO where Western medicine and empiricism crosses the line is when it represents to the public that the scientific method has somehow succeeded in proving the other branches of philosophy false. It hasn't done this in the least. Empiricism might be the consensus view at this particular moment, but to assume that, just because it has the majority of adherents, it must be more valid, is to commit a fundamental logical fallacy.

Personally, I tend to be a modern rationalist, and observe that all systems of thinking have value. One of those things that should be obvious IMO. But yet most of philosophy and science is still engaged in this false dichotomy of empiricism vs idealism going back over 2500 years.

I will, however, acknowledge a bias against the empiricists. I suspect that I lived a live contemporary with Lord Kelvin and have a tendency to project his bombastic and derisive attitude onto modern day scientists undeservedly. But then again, most empiricists would sneer at me for even considering past lives as a possibility. So it's not totally undeserved.

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Found this: The Role of Intuition in the Scientific Method (1963)

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/p014626.pdf

From the Defense Technical Information Center of all places. It concludes:

The conclusion I wish to draw from these remarks is that knowledge depends as much on intuition as it does on extrospection and logic; and that these aspects are interdependent. I have hoped to make you more aware of the implication that the nature of the rational act is much more complicated than heretofore supposed and that the simplistic views of cognition mus irrevocably be discarded.

I would agree with this conclusion.