I realize that in the SEO world, the standards of evidence are necessarily a little less rigorous. But, what?

I mean, I'm totally inclined to believe that Google is somehow promoting G+, but this does not strike me as convincing evidence. Neither does "I've seen lots of other examples!" Is there some credible information to be had, here?

Frankly, the output for this query suggests to me that Google isn't doing a very good job on this query in the first place. The photos of Guy aren't until the second page of results, and for some reason AllTop (possibly for SERP diversity reasons) is above many of his social media profiles.

Lastly, the G+ link is the seventh link. Only 50% of searchers even look at what the seventh link is! Is the claim that they are just trying to juice the results subtly?