"The naturalistic fallacy", sometimes with a dash of "argument from antiquity".
I think Yoga is more subject to this than some other forms of exercise, except maybe running. When you're wobbling around on top of a bicycle or have strapped yourself to a plank of wood on a mountain side, I hope something in your head tells you you're doing something unnatural. But a lot of people tend to take the line of argument that exercise is NATURAL is GOOD is SHUT UP.
Just because something is passed down through the ages or "natural" to humans doesn't make it _good_. It just makes it _old_. Something being practiced for hundreds or thousands (or in the case of running, hundreds of thousands) of years may give something a baseline plausibility that makes it worth investigating, but it itself is not scientific evidence.
Many people have run regularly over the years and most of them didn't instantly burst into flames, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be conducting long-term studies of the health benefits and risks of running at various intensities. Just because yoga is considered "ancient wisdom" doesn't mean we shouldn't test it rigorously and without preconceived notions of its efficacy or inefficacy.
Science is the only way to distinguish ancient wisdom from ancient hogwash; anecdotes and arguments only confirm pre-existing biases.
I think Yoga is more subject to this than some other forms of exercise, except maybe running. When you're wobbling around on top of a bicycle or have strapped yourself to a plank of wood on a mountain side, I hope something in your head tells you you're doing something unnatural. But a lot of people tend to take the line of argument that exercise is NATURAL is GOOD is SHUT UP.
Just because something is passed down through the ages or "natural" to humans doesn't make it _good_. It just makes it _old_. Something being practiced for hundreds or thousands (or in the case of running, hundreds of thousands) of years may give something a baseline plausibility that makes it worth investigating, but it itself is not scientific evidence.
Many people have run regularly over the years and most of them didn't instantly burst into flames, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be conducting long-term studies of the health benefits and risks of running at various intensities. Just because yoga is considered "ancient wisdom" doesn't mean we shouldn't test it rigorously and without preconceived notions of its efficacy or inefficacy.
Science is the only way to distinguish ancient wisdom from ancient hogwash; anecdotes and arguments only confirm pre-existing biases.