Are you a vendor of orgone accumulators or a staunch believer and customer?

How do you decide whether something works or not?

You don't. It is too costly and thus risky. Instead you do a charade and convince authorities (who just want to cover their asses citing some vetted studies) and people that your stuff work.

It is "ass covering" all the way. Not "does it work" all the way...

> Yoga, breathing exercises, meditation and the like were once considered fads and derided by your ‘science’.

What do you mean "once"?

In case you don't follow the field: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-...

> Meditation and mindfulness practices may have a variety of health benefits and may help people improve the quality of their lives. Recent studies have investigated if meditation or mindfulness helps people manage anxiety, stress, depression, pain, or symptoms related to withdrawal from nicotine, alcohol, or opioids.

> Other studies have looked at the effects of meditation or mindfulness on weight control or sleep quality.

> However, much of the research on these topics has been preliminary or not scientifically rigorous. Because the studies examined many different types of meditation and mindfulness practices, and the effects of those practices are hard to measure, results from the studies have been difficult to analyze and may have been interpreted too optimistically.

This is just a polite way of saying "there's no evidence of them actually doing anything*".

I mean, that's exactly what you'd tell someone who believed in the healing powers of homeopathy or chiropracty(sp?).

I recommend to skip the intro and go to specific articles.

That’s different as I don’t think anyone needs science to feel the benefits of yoga or breathwork but lots of people want to enact policies based social studies that are not able to be reproduced.

Scientists know that they don’t know everything and act accordingly, they don’t make claims for the efficacy of the things they don’t know.

People here routinely do.