Talk:Science of yoga

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Science of yoga/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cinadon36 (talk · contribs) 21:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I am ready to take this review. I hope I will run a throughout review within 7 days, so pls bare with me.

I am afraid there are serious issues that need to be addressed. To start with, the title of the article might be suggestive that yoga is some kind of science (as is geography, sociology etc). But it is clear that the article is a list of various researches examining the effect of practising yoga to the body, and what the significant of that evidence might be (which is too speculative- but this is another issue)

Thanks for the concern. The title is not "Yoga as a science" but "of yoga", like "the science of exercise" - exercise isn't a science, and the phrase doesn't claim that, but science certainly is applied to it; I have added a cited paragraph on Scope to say this. The article is not a list, nor does it contain any speculation about significance or otherwise. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:57, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Secondly, the article does not provide a clear definition of what "science of yoga" is and there is no reference to verify the description given. Cinadon36 21:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to GAN and many thanks for taking this on. I am accustomed to working closely with reviewers, even (or especially!) when they are a bit sceptical of an article, and will give this my prompt attention. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

On Verifiability

I have to admit that some of the sources are of excellent quality. But not all.

• Article does not follow a specific method of citing sources (see WP:CITEVAR)

I've used Harvard links to "Sources" to avoid repetition for the textbooks, which often have multiple refs from different pages, and inline for everything else. I've now split the refs up for clarity.

• On ref. Cramer, Holger; Lauche, Romy; Haller, Heidemarie; Dobos, Gustav (2013) (currently 1a) I couldn't locate the exact page supporting content.

The summary at the top on Methods "Randomized controlled trials comparing yoga to control conditions in patients with low back pain were included ... Main outcome measures were pain ..." and similarly Results "there was strong evidence for short-term effects on pain (SMD=-0.48; 95% CI, -0.65 to -0.31; P<0.01)". Of course there's more detail in the PDF.

• On ref. Cramer, Holger; Lauche, Romy; Haller, Heidemarie; Dobos, Gustav (2013) (currently 1b) The wording can be a bit misleading. The concusion of the authors was that "Given the low number of adverse events, yoga can be recommended as an additional therapy to patients who do not improve with education on self-care options". Someone reading the article might think that yoga could be a first-line therapy.

Added "as an additional therapy".

• Ref Broad 2012 (cur. ref.3)->great source

Noted.

• Ref Singleton, Mark (2010) (cur. ref.4)-> excellent source.

Noted.

• Ref Paul 1882 (cur. ref.5).-->Why is a book more that a century old is used as a ref? There are two excellent secondary sources supporting the text already.

The section is called History, and we're naming the historical sources as well as modern discussions of them. There is no assertion that the historical source contains modern medicine. The general point here is that even a medical article may contain non-medical parts not covered by the same standards.

• Ref Newcombe, Suzanne (2017) -->Ok

Noted.

• Ref Indian expr. (currently ref 7) name of the newspaper should be in italics

Fixed the parameter (work=)

• Ref to Yogendra 1928, page is missing, if not available a |loc= could do the trick

The ref is for the book itself, to support the historical claim "in books such as his 1928 Yoga Asanas Simplified".

• Ref Singleton (cur. ref. n.9) ->ok

Noted.

• Ref to livestrong--> Is livestrong.com a RS? Doesnt seem so...

I guess you're right it's not needed here.

• Ref Behanan 2002 -->page is missing.

As for Yogendra 1928, this is to the 1937 book (2002 reprint) itself; the claim itself is cited to modern academics.

• Ref Powers 2008. (cur. ref. 17)Is Sarah Powers a RS? I feel she is advancing a medical point without being a medical doctor or academic researcher.

She is an extremely experienced yoga teacher and the founder of a style of Yin yoga; more particularly the claims made are about the movement of joints, a matter of sports physiology rather than medicine as such; and there is another ref there in any case.

Ok, I will stop for now, I will go on later. Cinadon36 23:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

all done this far. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:05, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

More on Verifiability

• On newly build section of "scope"-->sources seem ok.

Noted.

• subsection Skeleton and joints-->sources are great.

Thank you.

• subsection Muscles-->This https://doctorlib.info, is it RS? Also, it seems to me that it violates copyright policies. Is Doctorlib the author of the book? Is Doctorlib the publisher? Googlebooks is naming another name as author. [1]. Also, last sentence of the subsection, seems a little awkwardly placed. I can not understand why we are providing a mini-"further-reading" or bibliography section within the main body.

Thanks. It seems to be the same text, so I've cited it directly, and I've removed the URL.

• Subsection Breathing-->heavily relies on DoctorLib.info.

As above.

• Section Physiological effects, subsection Fitness. I have checked Haskell's paper, but nowhere I found discussing/mentioning yoga.

Ah, a mixup. It's Larson-Meyer, cited in the same section. I've changed the note. Haskell remains relevant for explanation of the MET system.

• subsection "Cardiovascular health" and "Reduced cortisol"-->ok

Noted.

• subsection Relaxation -->Doctorlib.info again.

As above.

• Section "As Therapy". As I understand from reading Cramer's paper, it is not "systematic reviews" but his review that found "strong evidence for beneficial effects of yoga as an additional therapy on low back pain". I noticed that Cramer cites another systematic review (ref 10 at his paper) that "The results of this review are in line with a previous qualitative systematic review, which concluded that the evidence for treating LBP with yoga was encouraging". That does not qualify though as "strong evidence of yoga as a therapy for lbp". So...it seems to me that plural is an overstatement. I would also be more happy if we were not reporting Cramer's findings and citing Cramer at the same time.

Singular it is. We are using Cramer in both ways (primary and secondary), but being quite explicit about it so there is no breach.

So, these are my remarks on Verifiability. Cinadon36 21:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Broadness A) Main Aspects

it addresses the main aspects of the topic? Yes, mostly.

• Does the article clarifies that there is limited evidence, partly because of limited research? So and so. One can sense that research in yoga is underfunded. But it has been gaining pace the last two or three decades and I think it should be mentioned - maybe at history section.

The article both states directly that the work needs to be more rigorous, and cites the funding provided by the NIH.

• Does the article cover the effects on physiology? Yes Physical effects? Therapies? Yes, Criticism? Yes

Noted.

• Does the article cover adverse effects? Yes but it can also go a little further ie, yoga with instructor is much safer than practicing alone- I 've read it in a paper while reviewing the article but didn't take a note of it. There is a sentence within the subsection of Skeleton and joints, I feel that it could be expanded a little bit, maybe within a separate subsection- not necessary though.

Cited NIH on qualified instructor bit.

I think we've probably said what is justified on Skeleton and joints.

• Article should also give a little info on various forms of yoga exercising. Different forms of yoga exercises have different effects on body, as far as I understand.

There are major differences in vigour but that's hard to say more about beyond what is said in Fitness already.

Ok, thanks for the explanation(s).

Broadness B) Technical

• Section Fitness gets too technical, I feel the article should focus mainly on the concussion of D. Larson-Meyer's paper.

All right, I've moved the figures into footnotes. The key point in the paper is that yoga is often light exercise. Tell that to a bunch of Bikram yogis, however!

• Subsection on Cortisol is too technical and does not fit with rest of the subsections. Rest of the subsections are not pointing to a parameter/lab result. Someone that is not aware of Cortisol, might be misled into thinking that there is strong evidence that yoga can prevent memory-related diseases.

Simplified and merged sections.

These were my remarks on Broadness. Cinadon36 22:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality

The article does not go too far on praising yoga or is making unfounded claims on health benefits, but there are a few spots that need discussing.

Noted.

• Lede: understates the criticism of yoga presented in the last section. The criticism by Steven Novella is not directed at "Yoga marketing". Yoga marketing should also me mentioned at the pseudoscience section. Also, pseudoscience or claims of ineffectiveness, should get their own paragraf at the lede (maybe the last one?)

Novella states directly as quoted "marketing a specific intervention as if it has specific benefits"; I agree he may be using the term partly figuratively but there's no reason to suppose he doesn't also mean it as written: commercial interest is certainly involved. I think a whole paragraph unjustified (and we shouldn't have more than four in the lead), but the last paragraph is actually mainly about it already. I've added a bit more there.

• Lede: should mention the lack of high quality research on the field.

Added.

• Lede: I get the feeling that some forms of yoga got under scientific scrutiny for health benefits. The lede should attribute the health benefits to the specific forms of yoga, or at least add the phrase "There is evidence that some forms of yoga help this and that..." instead of "yoga helps this and that"

Not sure that's right. The popular forms may have been chosen more often, as you'd expect if researchers chose at random or their nearest studio, but there's hardly any evidence I've seen that one school is better than another at such-and-such. The lead states clearly that we mean yoga-as-exercise, not the meditational kind.

• Lede: "Yoga is also used directly as therapy, " why is the whole phrase as a blue link?

Because the linked article is "Yoga as therapy".

Couldn't it be Yoga is also used directly as [[Yoga as therapy|therapy]] Usually we hyperlink the subject or the complement.

No, because "therapy" is the name of a quite different article. I've made it "as therapy" for you. Might even be a complement, actually.

• Section pseudoscience: Plenty of RS are talking on this topic, there could be some non-attributed sentences- at least a couple. I have found this, author articulates a point not mentioned in the article.

All of it is attributed.

Additional source: added.

These are my comments on neutrality so far. Cinadon36 09:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks, I'll get to this later today. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Stability, media, well written

• Stable: the article has been changing but no disputes on content though, so that's an easy "Ok"
• On Media (Copyright)
  • File:Kuvalayananda experiment on oxygen use in yogic practice[2] -->There 's a notification for the uploader, it seems that fair use is in question. Other media are ok.

It's on every fair use image: it just says "you have to write a rationale for each usage", which has been done.

• On Media "media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.":Ok.
• On prose: Section Scope has too many verbatims. Otherwise it is fine.

You mean too much quoted text? The section is dealing with the question of definition where different authorities have varying opinions, so it is essential to attribute these by name and to quote brief passages for each to show what they actually wrote. In each case the amount of text is a very small percentage of the works in question and as such falls well within the bounds of fair usage for criticism and commentary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I am talking about the quoted text. I have no doubt that it is ok from the perspective of Copyrights, I mentioned it as a prose issue. Too much quoted text interferes with flow. Not necessary to fix it though, I get your point.

Many thanks.

Thanks, Cinadon36 20:43, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

PS- Can you also fix Reference section per MOS:FNNR? Thanks.Cinadon36 09:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Cinadon36 In my view it's fully compliant, indeed it now goes way beyond the usual standard required at GAN. What is your issue? Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:39, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi, seems we are both online. Reference section starts with subsection titled "books" while it is the list generated by the tag {{reflist}}, so instead of books, someone read the footnotes of the article. It should be an easy fix. Cinadon36 09:47, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry but I've no idea what that tag has to do with anything, and can't see anything to fix to be honest. Go to "History" and click on ref [2]: as one would expect it goes to "Books" 2. ^ Broad 2012, pp. 20ff. If you then click on "Broad 2012" at that place, it takes you down to "Book sources" at "Broad, William (2012). The Science of Yoga", which is exactly what it should be doing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:02, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, my fault.

No worries.

Summary, congrats

The article was already in a good shape when I started reviewing it and I think now it is slightly better. Material was added and most importantly a problematic source was replaced. Congratulations Chiswick Chap, good job. Cinadon36 17:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)