How to FAKE Evidence

this video is brought to you by my supporters  on patreon buy me coffee and YouTube if you'd like to support me you can find the links below  the other day I was diligently watching YouTube when I came across this video Sadhguru AKA  Jaggi Vasudev' s Team has done a scientific study that shows you the effect and the impact  of shambhavi mahamudra which is a breathing technique in meditation course he sells I've  seen the way he misrepresents science in a way that benefits him and this study isn'

t any  different but it's been done and reported in a manner that when the average person sees  it they can be convinced of its legitimacy now I don't want this to be just another video  where I say something against Sadhguru how predictable is that coming from me no I want this video  to be useful to you let's use this study a s a learning opportunity to see how studies are  meant to be designed we'll look at what is the flaws in the study as well as its good parts next  time you come across a

study you'll know exactly what to look for my name is pranav and you're  watching science is dope let's begin [Music] now we've got two things here first there's  this video of him talking about it and then there's the actual study now most people aren't  going to bother reading the study they're gonna watch the video because it takes less time and  it's cognitively easier so we're gonna look at both the video and the study to see what he says  in the video is actually there in the study We're n

ot gonna look at the whole video because  that'll make this video much longer than it already is and it's already pretty long I'm only  gonna look at parts of the video but if you want to check if I'm taking Sadhguru 's words out of  context or if I'm interpreting him unfairly feel free to check it out yourself I'll link  the video down below now his video starts like this chronic ailments like diabetes hypertension  asthma eating disorders and many of these kinds which are all essentially gener

ated from within  all these things can be quelled from within if only we are willing to pay a certain level of  attention to the innermost dimension of who we are I don't know where he's pulling these  numbers from because they're not from this study I've read the whole thing and nothing  of this sort is mentioned not these diseases not these numbers and this is the study he's  talking about in the video he's either just stating it randomly or if nowhere or it's from  some unspecified study I ca

n't comment because no reference is mentioned here right off the bat  this is a red flag because the people who gonna watch this video are gonna conclude that they  are from this study recently this purpose have been published maybe you already read it a certain  group of scientists and doctors in United States from Indiana University some from Harvard  University and Florida they studied people who've been practicing in engineering lots  of name dropping of reputed institutes involved in the st

udy now although I was not able to find the  name Harvard anywhere in the study I was able to find Indiana School of Medicine which is well done  because you're minimizing the chance of errors in the study and increasing its reliability by  going through repeated institutions mind you you're reducing the chances you're not reducing  it to zero now even though I was not able to find the name of some institutes he mentions here I  will give him a green flag at the end of this video let's count up

the red flags in the green  flags and get an idea of how robust the study is the genetic Tendencies are changing simply  within engineering practices no mention of any genetic analysis in the study so I don't know why  he's saying this maybe he's pulling this info out of nowhere just to sell it to the viewer red  flag also what is this genetic tendency well I do know that satguru has a genetic tendency to  throw around words that sound scientific but has nothing to do with science like for examp

le inner  engineering has nothing to do with engineering and yogic technologies have nothing to do with  technology so they recorded all these things the biomarkers and everything one thing that  determines the nature of your experience and your mental and emotional condition is what is  called as bdnf that is brain derived neurotropic factors okay now we're getting to the meat of the  study I'll tell you what they did with this bdnf biomarkers but first what is bdnf the basically  molecules whi

ch attach themselves to specific receptors on the cells to make those cells do  certain stuff btnf receptors activate neurons that are involved in brain function everything Sadhguru   said so far is fine it's a superficial layperson explanation but the problem starts here so the  bdnf is higher in a positive way three-fold in 90 days so the threefold increase they mentioned as  in this completely different study which says that it was funded by someone from Isha but declares  no conflict of inte

rest there's also a part of the study which says that because of a limited  budget they eliminated some participants from the study this smells to mean like data manipulation  to get the results the research funder wanted I can't say for sure but all I can do is not take  this claim seriously especially because of their conflict of interest statement which contradicts  what they've said about research funding for the study this is clearly a red flag I had another  person here what is this what i

s the point of a unit if there are no numbers on the graph or is  it some interesting stat and traffic that looks sciency that is just there to Dazzle someone  who won't look more into it to someone who is skeptical this is just hilarious one more red flag  okay at this point I should probably get get into what the study actually did Sadhguru has a program  called bsp bHava spandana program it involves a four day three night stay at the Isha Center it  involves special vegetarian food nature hik

es and live music along with meditation and that's where  the shambhavi mahapudra comes in now this program is conducted in many parts of the world this  particular study was done on the participants that attended their program conducted at the Isha  Center in Tennessee USA now what they did was they got the participants of the program to go through  two steps one was an online survey conducted before right after and then one month after the  program the people who participated in the survey wer

e given the option to take part in the blood  biomarker part of the study their blood was drawn at two points two days before the program and two  days after it the blood was then tested for the levels of these molecules let's first admire this  beautiful name here anandamite which comes from the Sanskrit word anima meaning Bliss it's just a  beautiful name who are named it thumbs up to you my friend they're trying to study the impact  of meditation and meditative practices like the shambhavi ma

hamudra on these molecules in our  blood on these biomarkers okay now of these we've already talked about BDNF what about the rest  of the molecules they called endocannabinoids what are they let's hear sadhguru explain what they  are you know what is a cannabinoid in India it is known as ganja or everywhere else it's known  as marijuana but essentially these are plant extracts which have a certain influence  on the mood and experience of the person but there are millions of cannabis receptors b

oth  in your brain and across the body because you are supposed to produce it you're not supposed  to smoke it all right I'd say there's a very surface level explanation to the layperson on  what cannabinoids are if I were a layman this explanation is enough but if we're gonna read the  study then we have to elaborate this explanation a little bit because there are some flaws here in  what Sadhguru said you know what is a cannabinoid in India it is known as ganja or everywhere  else it's known a

s marijuana okay the plant is not called cannabinoid it's called cannabis  the different extracts from this plant are the cannabinoids in the at scientists discovered  that there are receptors in the brain that get activated by molecules extracted from Cannabis  like THC CBD Etc hence the name cannabinoids but why would the human brain have receptors for these  plant extracts could the human body itself produce molecules that could activate these receptors  that led to the discovery of molecules

that was then named after the Sanskrit word for Bliss  Ananda it was called anandamide soon followed the discovery of other cannabinoids that are  produced within the body collectively these were called endocannabinoids and the cannabinoids that  came from plants were called phytocannabinoids now what the study was trying to do was to  see if this program and this meditation had any effect on the endocannabinoids level in the  blood with the inner engineering practices it's clearly the biomarke

rs clearly establish that your  endocannabinoid production is significantly higher that means you are stoned by yourself oof 3 times higher?  where is finding let's look at the reference Sadashivam at Al that's this paper  the data that they obtained has nothing to show with this kind of change it does show Improvement  but how much of that Improvement is reliable data I have to say this point that it looks like they  were hoping that no one would actually read this paper and would just be impr

essed by the sciency  looking graphic that actually is meaningless all of this gets a red flag I've seen the rest of  this video it's just marketing for Sadhguru's inner engineering but if you want to look at it  more closely again I'll link it in the description now let's probably look at the study and examine  what they've done I've already given you a basic rundown there was a survey and then there was  a blood biomarker study of the people that attended the BSP program to learn the impact of

  these Isha meditation practices and their impact on the levels of these biomarkers in the blood  now the first part of the study the service and everything involves cell self reporting as the  study itself States the only people allowed to participate in this program are the ones who are  already in engineering practitioners themselves these are Sadhguru followers reporting on how  they feel after attending Sadhguru's program any sort of self-reported data from these biased  set of people beco

mes automatically unreliable now notice that sadhguru himself never mentioned  anything about the survey part of the study in the video only the biomarkers study because  people instinctively know intuitively know that is more objective so will also look at only that the first  thing is that this study has been reported in a questionable Journal evidence-based  complementary and alternative medicine Journal nearly every single alternative medicine Journal  I've seen lacks peer review even the on

es that do have it it's never thoroughly done and here's  why good peer review is important it looks at whether the study was designed properly it looks  at the calculations and the analysis and sees if it's done correctly it looks at the results and  whether the inference drawn as reasonable based on the findings based on the data it looks at  whether there are biases in the studied design that could influence the results what's even worse  is that this study has been reported in a journal that

has been flagged and delisted as you can see  on retraction watch for failing to meet quality criteria this is the red flag now the journal  being delisted doesn't automatically mean that the study is flood for that we have to look at  the study itself so let's do that we should first discuss why we want to do studies in the first  place like if you want to figure out if meditation has positive effects on a person why not get  someone who practices meditation and ask them if they feel better I

mean that is how satguru  prefers to do things now there is scientific evidence we always always knew this but today a  meter has to say if a man says it it's not true if a man says it it's doubtful but a meter has  to say it now the meters are saying it this is why we do research let's say you want to see  if meditation has positive effects showing that someone who meditated had positive changes is not  enough we have to consider the other factors that could have led to the same results and the

n  eliminates them one by one then we can be more sure that meditation is what led to those  positive effects simply put we do research if there are many factors that could have led to  a certain result and we want to figure out the effect of any one of those factors let's say we  have a person who practices and he feels good now it could be the meditation that is making him feel  good but what with something else maybe they made a recent change in their diet and that's what's  making them feel

good I know that's a hypothetical example but that drives the point home there could  be other factors by seeing our results so to avoid that we asked multiple people who all practice  this shambhavi mahamudra if they all feel good it's less likely that they all made the same  change in their diet and that's what's making them feel good basically the factors that could  influence the result in one person it's less likely that they'll influence the result in all  these people this is the first th

ing that a study should do increasing the sample size this study  is done on a sample of 142 participants which is decent for a pilot study and so green flag  now what else could influence results so if a person strongly believes that Something's Gonna  help them and if they do it they might mentally start feeling better but often what they feel  in their heads does not translate to reality for instance someone might have back pain and  go to a faith healer burning this arthritis after the sessi

on they might feel better but  later when they get back home the pain would be back so the pain not being there was something  in their heads something they mentally felt so asking the people how they felt tends to bring  in their personal biases it's very subjective this study like I said has surveyed a bunch of Sadhguru followers on how they felt after attending Sadhguru's program that is the literal definition of  asking for subjective biased results so how can we get an objective and unbias

ed result out of this  we collect their blood and test it for biomarkers that show that a person is feeling good this is  objective this study has done both the survey as well as the blood by marker testing but we're only  gonna look at the objective results and so this is gonna be a green flag moving on now this study  has been conducted at Sadhguru's isha center in Tennessee USA and it's a four day three night  study like I said involving things like nature hikes and live music in addition to

the meditation  sessions there was also in-house food that was provided to these participants we know for a fact  that exercise activates the endocannabinoid system and so does diet chocolate for example contains  anandamide the participants were also in a new environment that means fresh air and they were  away from that urban lifestyle and the temperature and humidity were at a comfortable level all  these factors could affect the result so what have they done to prevent the effect from any of

  these factors nothing absolutely nothing and this is the most crucial thing that they should have  done and it's also the main reason why the results of the study are unreliable what should they have  done have a control group what is a control group it's a group of study participants that we use to  control the effects from other factors usually in a medical trial we divide the participants  into two groups and to one group we give the medicine and the other group a placebo which is  a substa

nce but no medical effect then we look at the difference between both the groups now we can  be more sure that if any other factors like age or gender or diet or environment or some activity  they do affects the results they will influence both groups and still if there is any significant  difference between the groups then we can be more sure that it's because of the medicine but Pranav  wait how can we have a control group here this study is not on any medicine we're testing it's  on a meditat

ion program I'll tell you how how about we divide the participants into two groups  one group gets the whole program with no changes the other group gets everything in the program  except the meditation sessions so they get the diet the hiking the music everything that way we  get to see if the meditation in the program has an effect on the blood biomarkers if it does then  one group will have a significant change over the other if it doesn't then both groups will have  the same change and this

is crucial for a study like this because we know that biomarkers like  BD enough and endocannabinoids are significantly influenced by physical activity not to mention  things like diet and experiences like live music which are all part of this program in my opinion  this is the biggest flaw in their study design now we have no idea if the changes were due to the  meditation in the program or because of any other physical activity or something that was part of  the program we have no idea if we c

an create the same changes in people without any meditation  with only these other activities so clearly for not having a control group this study gets a red  flag let's keep going because there's more I took a look at the demographics of the study and look  at this almost 70 percent of the participants were Indians the rest had all all the other races  with some in very small insignificant numbers and this table is for the whole study including  the survey the blood biomarker study had a much s

maller part of this now why is this important  usually with things like anxiety mental health genetics plays a very important role but we will  not try and eliminate the effect of genetics and see how much meditation can help so what people  are trying to do is we want to make sure we have enough people from all Races ages genders Etc  in both groups we can even mix them up before the study for further randomization we have to  do this to ensure those factors don't affect our final results so fo

r randomization the study  gets a red flag and there's more this study just mentions that the participants have taken part  in the bsp program that's it no further details about what happens during bsp just that it's a  meditation program I had to find out all this information myself usually in a study there's a  clear clear description of what the participants went through but that's not there over here and if  they had access to the participants for collecting their blood Etc my guess is that

this study is  either done by Isha or is strongly associated with Isha also Sadhguru endorsed the findings of the  study to promote his program isn't that a clear Financial motivation isn't that a clear conflict  of interest if it's not then shouldn't there be more clarification than just what they've written  other than this conflict of interest statement which looks very generic like they've copy pasted  from somewhere there is nothing they've stated this is clearly a red flag you look at thes

e five  things in any study and if you get green flags the results of that study are very reliable that's  my analysis tell me if you have any arguments against it in the comments below I will read them  now let's tally up the flags nine red flags and three green flags doesn't look robust does it  here's my take on all this whenever you make an extraordinary claim like I have a meditation  program that will treat you mental health outcomes with no medication you need extraordinary  evidence to b

ack that up not flimsy evidence like this paper with so many red flags unless of course  you don't really care about evidence you're just doing a study so you can Market it in front of  people and convince them to sign up now there is scientific evidence we always knew this but today  a meter has to say if a man says it it's not true if a man says it it's doubtful but a meter has to  say it now the meters are saying it don't get me wrong my aim with this video was not to show that  meditation do

es not help or that it's ineffective and I've not shown that what I have shown is that  this study and its finding such results are very weak in terms of evidence and do not support  this claim now you can disagree with me here but I'm of the opinion that Sadhguru like he  usually does is misrepresenting science in order to further his own ideas quite often he does it in  a way like this where it seems legitimate to the average person and it just isn't the reason we do  research is to try and A

dvance our knowledge and I absolutely resent anyone who hijacks that process  to promote their business using studies like this I understand now why this paper could not be  published in a legitimate peer-reviewed Journal because they would have instantly spotted  the flaws of this paper and would not have published it special thanks to Dr Libin Abraham  Dr Harish Tarayil Dr Shinsmon Jose and Dr Abby Phillips for helping me out with this video let  me know how you like this kind of content I'll

be sure to make more of these depending on your  response but making risque content like this is not a great move for me calling out religious  and spiritual figureheads makes no Financial sense sponsors don't want to associate with  this content YouTube ad revenue is really bad and there's always a risk of demonetization  but I still made a shift in this direction nearly two months back and the only reason it  worked is because you guys stepped in I'm able to support both myself and this conten

t thanks to  generous support from all of you I've been able to keep putting out content without help from  a single sponsor on my videos since I decided to make this switch let's see how long we can keep  that going support from you goes a long way especially continued support if you do decide to  support me even a little bit I've got links down below for you I highly recommend patreon support  that way you get rewards I've recently revamped my YouTube memberships as well they've got rewards  s

imilar to patreon now feel free to check them out but you can also do a one-time support on  buy me coffee or upi if you like this video you might also like this one I'll see you in the  next video till then remember science is dope