Does anyone else feel that this tweet from Chief Scientist of WHO is borderline problematic and adds more more fuel to the pseudoscience industry?

Thread
@EdzardErnst
A link claiming the effectives of 'Yoga' improving 'all parameters' is shared. But the link doesn't give access to the full study or paper as far as we can see. Has it undergone peer review and critical appraisal? We are unsure.
Ministry of AYUSH which thrives on promoting pseudoscience, especially HOMEOPATHY in India is tagged which makes it even more bizzare. Pseudoscience is legitimised in India, there's a ministry for it and then the WHO's chf scientist gives importance to such a ministry on twitter!
Let's talk about Yoga itself. There are already enough studies showing physical exercise helps in maintaining health and keeping in bay many lifestyle diseases. How is rebranding that as 'Yoga' more beneficial? What's new here?

Read more:
sciencebasedmedicine.org/yoga-woo/
Is there a consensus on what is
'Yoga'?

'No'

There are different postures or aasanas which would be indeed be beneficial for different conditions in some ways but why market them under one umbrella term?

Not to mention the fair amount of pseudoscience, mysticism associated!
If you have access to the full paper, please provide a link so that we can critically appraise the study.
Like we expected people have already started quoting the tweet and have started promoting pseudoscience in the name of 'traditional medicines' because now there's 'evidence' for it. There are few more who have even started tagging Sadhguru and Sri Sri!

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More from @desisciencepage

27 Dec
If mere existence of a 'RCT' is the sole benchmark for calling something 'evidence', entirely ignoring the quality of the study then ANY treatment promoted by the pseudoscience lobby can be recommended by that logic. We can find a shoddy RCT somewhere!
No. We aren't against Yoga. Yoga sans all the woo, hype, mysticism, supernatural claims, and the accompanying pseudoscience would probably be good as a part of healthy lifestyle as exercise when done in 'reasonable limits'.

It is the 'cure for all' claims which we are against.
We are against the misrepresentations like these (in the study) claiming it to be superior to exercise somehow because it is 'yoga' you know?!

We are against being vague about definitions and trying to market it as some kind of magic cure or a secret science now being revealed!
Read 5 tweets
9 Sep
A look at some of the principles of critical thinking:

(A thread with video links)


#CriticalThinking
The Burden of Proof: Makers of supernatural claims have an inescapable burden of proof.



#CriticalThinking
Open-mindedness:

A look at some of the flawed thinking that prompts people who believe in certain non-scientific concepts to advise others who don't to be more open-minded.



#CriticalThinking
Read 10 tweets

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