I completely agree. The article's author suggests that the study's result is too good (to be true), and casts that as the sole reason to reject the study. I thi

I completely agree. The article's author suggests that the study's result is too good (to be true), and casts that as the sole reason to reject the study. I think that such a surprising result definitely deserves scrutiny, but barring problems with the method or stats used, it's merely surprising, not "impossible". Within the paper itself, the authors clearly considered this: A key aspect for interpreting the association between the ordinal position of a case and parole decisions is whether an unobserved factor determines case order in such a way that yields the pattern of results we obtain. They then interview judges and lawyers and examine the process to rule these out! Which is rare enough for a quantitative study like this (where they often publish the conclusions and just say "it could be X"). Unless the author can cite a more specific grievance, I'll trust the data.