The Counterclockwise Experiment(domofutu.substack.com)
domofutu.substack.com
The Counterclockwise Experiment
https://domofutu.substack.com/p/the-counterclockwise-experiment
25 comments
Another skeptical take on Langer's experiment (https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/06/hotels-and-houseplants-wh..., June 2024):
"...this widely-cited and influential work was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. The findings were instead reported in Langer’s 2009 book ‘Counterclockwise’. Despite the intriguing results, this study was never peer-reviewed or replicated. In 2019, a protocol for a replication was published, but at the time of writing the results are still pending."
Indeed, she appears to have a history of doing experiments that never get published in peer-reviewed places, but citing them in her books.
"...this widely-cited and influential work was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. The findings were instead reported in Langer’s 2009 book ‘Counterclockwise’. Despite the intriguing results, this study was never peer-reviewed or replicated. In 2019, a protocol for a replication was published, but at the time of writing the results are still pending."
Indeed, she appears to have a history of doing experiments that never get published in peer-reviewed places, but citing them in her books.
Sample of one, but I went back to grad school at 45. Was living at home with wife and son, so was firmly grounded in the present. However being around energetic, enthusiastic, and optimistic fellow students in their early 20s was a real boost. Many factors at work - the program required a ton of energy and an openness to considering new ideas - something I had not experienced in corporate life in many years. Definitely did not reverse aging, but really lifted my energy and optimism considerably.
Science aside, taking the article for what it is, it’s a nice reminder that context and framing are important.
I would add that - and this is extremely qualitative - having to “think” about the choice presented might defeat the purpose.
Coming back from a trip in the Peruvian Andes, I experienced 70 year olds working with their 8 year old grandchildren along steep terraces 3k+ meters above see level.
This wasn’t a “my body is too old for this”.
It wasn’t a conscious or rational “don’t let my age dictate my abilities”.
It was just how the community lived.
And while I (early 30s) was sucking air like a vacuum, they went on (at least seemingly) as nonchalantly as a reader of HN might brew a morning pour over (me included).
I would add that - and this is extremely qualitative - having to “think” about the choice presented might defeat the purpose.
Coming back from a trip in the Peruvian Andes, I experienced 70 year olds working with their 8 year old grandchildren along steep terraces 3k+ meters above see level.
This wasn’t a “my body is too old for this”.
It wasn’t a conscious or rational “don’t let my age dictate my abilities”.
It was just how the community lived.
And while I (early 30s) was sucking air like a vacuum, they went on (at least seemingly) as nonchalantly as a reader of HN might brew a morning pour over (me included).
I noticed that when my Dad tells stories about his college years, he seems sprightly for a few minutes. Like his laugh sounds more energetic. It's fleeting but I'm sure it's real.
Is this study reproducible?
If not it’s another example of the crisis in psychology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
If not it’s another example of the crisis in psychology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
It was never even published.
Also people vastly misunderstand the replication crisis. "Soft" sciences are harder to actually do science with. It's harder to measure things of humans vs an electron for example.
But even in chemistry, there's a very high chance that if you take a random paper, even from the 60s say, and try to do it yourself you do not get the result from the paper, but that doesn't mean the paper is wrong, it can just as easily mean that the paper did not include some important environmental condition or procedure or whatever.
NileRed and the guy from Explosions and Fire have both had difficulty reproducing random chemistry papers. Does that mean chemistry is this big lie and narrative propped up by lying academics?
No, it means science is freaking hard.
Every paper has a nonzero "failed replication" rate. Realms of science where it is harder to measure things and control the experiment have vastly higher expected rates of replication failure. People who do science every day understand this and work with it, and it is not a problem.
Consider this; China has a HUGE replication problem with their science, with significantly more actual fraud than we have in the US.
Has it hampered their advancement?
Science is usually self correcting in that, if you put out fraud, anyone trying to build off your work will fail. This is what happened with several past famous fraudsters in science.
Scientists do not even consider "peer review" to be a real quality signal of any sort. It basically wasn't a formal system until the 60s.
They just read the paper.
Also people vastly misunderstand the replication crisis. "Soft" sciences are harder to actually do science with. It's harder to measure things of humans vs an electron for example.
But even in chemistry, there's a very high chance that if you take a random paper, even from the 60s say, and try to do it yourself you do not get the result from the paper, but that doesn't mean the paper is wrong, it can just as easily mean that the paper did not include some important environmental condition or procedure or whatever.
NileRed and the guy from Explosions and Fire have both had difficulty reproducing random chemistry papers. Does that mean chemistry is this big lie and narrative propped up by lying academics?
No, it means science is freaking hard.
Every paper has a nonzero "failed replication" rate. Realms of science where it is harder to measure things and control the experiment have vastly higher expected rates of replication failure. People who do science every day understand this and work with it, and it is not a problem.
Consider this; China has a HUGE replication problem with their science, with significantly more actual fraud than we have in the US.
Has it hampered their advancement?
Science is usually self correcting in that, if you put out fraud, anyone trying to build off your work will fail. This is what happened with several past famous fraudsters in science.
Scientists do not even consider "peer review" to be a real quality signal of any sort. It basically wasn't a formal system until the 60s.
They just read the paper.
It seems unlikely. Some control groups might be nice.
Send two more groups on a week long retreat, tell them some quack theory and see if they improve.
Send two more groups on a week long retreat, tell them some quack theory and see if they improve.
it's all science, not just "psychology."
i'm working my way through [1] to try and internalize the ability to recognize the weasel. The part about a test that's 80% accurate for positive, and 9.6% false positive rate made intuitive sense to me, and yet something like "15% of doctors get it right."
The excuses abound: You need a "lab", there's no money in replication, "science marches on[2]", and so on. It's just a cover for an alternate economy, at this point. I'm sorry if you're a scientist doing actual science and your entire foundation is being chipped away at by these heathens.
i'm working my way through [1] to try and internalize the ability to recognize the weasel. The part about a test that's 80% accurate for positive, and 9.6% false positive rate made intuitive sense to me, and yet something like "15% of doctors get it right."
The excuses abound: You need a "lab", there's no money in replication, "science marches on[2]", and so on. It's just a cover for an alternate economy, at this point. I'm sorry if you're a scientist doing actual science and your entire foundation is being chipped away at by these heathens.
[1] https://www.norvig.com/experiment-design.html posted here earlier this week.
[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceMarchesOn - "New discoveries make old theories obsolete and stories retroactively inaccurate."I agree it’s a crisis, and I’ve wondered what we should do about this. Any thoughts?
It'd take something like encouraging through monetization the replication of papers / experiments, with completely transparent methods (i.e. a video archive, or such).
However i presuppose that we can also fix greed, payola (and other bribery), litigation of results that some don't like, and so on. I don't think those are solvable (in my lifetime, probably.)
So an alternative would be for a non-profit with large funding to open laboratories around the planet and run replication experiments; this would need to be their only purpose. You'd have to figure out how to convince people to do the thankless work of proving or disproving others' experiments, designs, and so on. Even if you somehow could assign prestige for being the hardest-nosed re-researcher in the program...
And even then, you'll still have people that believe outlandish, patently unbelievable things. You'll still be unable to be 100% sure that something is correct.
However i presuppose that we can also fix greed, payola (and other bribery), litigation of results that some don't like, and so on. I don't think those are solvable (in my lifetime, probably.)
So an alternative would be for a non-profit with large funding to open laboratories around the planet and run replication experiments; this would need to be their only purpose. You'd have to figure out how to convince people to do the thankless work of proving or disproving others' experiments, designs, and so on. Even if you somehow could assign prestige for being the hardest-nosed re-researcher in the program...
And even then, you'll still have people that believe outlandish, patently unbelievable things. You'll still be unable to be 100% sure that something is correct.
I wonder how the emotional attitudes of the ere they recreate might affect this? If in 30 years I'm placed in an environment that recreates 2020, down to signs on doors telling me to wear a mask and wash my hands, mortality graphs on my browser tabs, and hate and stupidity on the news, I'm not sure I'd suddenly find my posture straightening and my age lines disappearing.
Folks; use some common sense.
Results that are too good to be true! The probably are. If this study was reproducible (it is not) someone would have started using it, bragging about it, and we would have 'recovery vacations' to cruise lines that would de-age us by years.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and this just isn't it.
(Hat tip to to patel011393 for getting this link out there first: https://www.pubpeer.com/search?q=ellen+langer )
cool (not really true) story. Cool anecdote. Not science.
Results that are too good to be true! The probably are. If this study was reproducible (it is not) someone would have started using it, bragging about it, and we would have 'recovery vacations' to cruise lines that would de-age us by years.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and this just isn't it.
(Hat tip to to patel011393 for getting this link out there first: https://www.pubpeer.com/search?q=ellen+langer )
cool (not really true) story. Cool anecdote. Not science.
> If this study was reproducible (it is not) someone would have started using it
That supposes that there is an army of researchers dedicated to repeating expensive experiments. As far as I can tell this is doesn't exist. Especially in cases like this when it's obvious that the experimental protocol lacked controls and hence would cost more to repeat than the original study.
There are plenty of things that are not reproducible yet they make their way into text books and general practice.
I don't know if the claims in this article are correct but it is suggestive nonetheless:
"The analysis, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, included 154 Cochrane systematic reviews published between 2015 and 2019. Only 15 (9.9 percent) had high-quality evidence according to the gold-standard method for determining whether they provide high or low-quality evidence, called GRADE (grading of recommendations, assessment, development and evaluation).
Among these, only two had statistically significant results – meaning that the results were unlikely to have arisen due to random error – and were believed by the review authors to be useful in clinical practice.
Using the same system, 37 percent had moderate, 31 percent had low, and 22 percent had very low-quality evidence."
https://www.sciencealert.com/around-90-percent-of-your-medic...
That supposes that there is an army of researchers dedicated to repeating expensive experiments. As far as I can tell this is doesn't exist. Especially in cases like this when it's obvious that the experimental protocol lacked controls and hence would cost more to repeat than the original study.
There are plenty of things that are not reproducible yet they make their way into text books and general practice.
I don't know if the claims in this article are correct but it is suggestive nonetheless:
"The analysis, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, included 154 Cochrane systematic reviews published between 2015 and 2019. Only 15 (9.9 percent) had high-quality evidence according to the gold-standard method for determining whether they provide high or low-quality evidence, called GRADE (grading of recommendations, assessment, development and evaluation).
Among these, only two had statistically significant results – meaning that the results were unlikely to have arisen due to random error – and were believed by the review authors to be useful in clinical practice.
Using the same system, 37 percent had moderate, 31 percent had low, and 22 percent had very low-quality evidence."
https://www.sciencealert.com/around-90-percent-of-your-medic...
This article was so incredibly difficult to read. I couldn’t tell why until I skimmed back through it and saw the incredibly rough tells of LLM-speak throughout it.
Agreed. Insane amounts of "Not just X, but Y" or "This isn't about A. It's B." constructions that ping to me as LLM-generated but, at best, were the work of a repetitious human writer in dire need of a (human) editor.
> Not remember it. Not discuss it. Live it.
> No drugs. No surgeries. No medical interventions at all. [...] Just a shift in context. A different story to inhabit.
> These aren't just throwaway comments. They're programming.
> ...health isn't just physiological but narrative. [...] Not because we're hypochondriacs, but because expectation is itself an intervention that shapes our biology.
> Not to pretend, but to remember through their bodies what vitality felt like.
> The men at the retreat weren't cured of aging. They were temporarily freed from the cultural story that aging means inevitable, passive deterioration.
> She's not peddling the fantasy that positive thoughts can overcome all illness. She's not suggesting we can think our way to immortality or that serious medical conditions respond to attitude adjustments. [...] What she's demonstrating is more subtle and perhaps more powerful[...]
> This is about epistemic flexibility, not magical thinking. It's about loosening our grip on stories that may be limiting us unnecessarily, not abandoning medical care or scientific understanding.
> The most radical aspect of Langer's work isn't that belief affects biology, but that she treats this connection as a therapeutic tool rather than an inconvenient complication.
And that's just from the first two sections!
> Not remember it. Not discuss it. Live it.
> No drugs. No surgeries. No medical interventions at all. [...] Just a shift in context. A different story to inhabit.
> These aren't just throwaway comments. They're programming.
> ...health isn't just physiological but narrative. [...] Not because we're hypochondriacs, but because expectation is itself an intervention that shapes our biology.
> Not to pretend, but to remember through their bodies what vitality felt like.
> The men at the retreat weren't cured of aging. They were temporarily freed from the cultural story that aging means inevitable, passive deterioration.
> She's not peddling the fantasy that positive thoughts can overcome all illness. She's not suggesting we can think our way to immortality or that serious medical conditions respond to attitude adjustments. [...] What she's demonstrating is more subtle and perhaps more powerful[...]
> This is about epistemic flexibility, not magical thinking. It's about loosening our grip on stories that may be limiting us unnecessarily, not abandoning medical care or scientific understanding.
> The most radical aspect of Langer's work isn't that belief affects biology, but that she treats this connection as a therapeutic tool rather than an inconvenient complication.
And that's just from the first two sections!
You could use this as a good training set for an AI usage detector…
i think it's a give and take here, like the 5th time i injured myself working out i conceded that perhaps i am aging and can't go as hard lol. i suppose it's a slippery slope down now where you are now over time adjusting the workouts to be less and less intensive, but it's not for lack of trying.
Pretty sure I saw this episode of the twilight zone. No, actually I think it was Sapphire & Steel.
There are many, many detailed critiques online. PubPeer is just one starting point: https://www.pubpeer.com/search?q=ellen+langer
I would not allow an undergrad psych major to propose such drivel.