Of course it's a single data point, stating my personal preference and the objective characteristics of the code that make it more readable, to me. That's what the article did too! But they tried to use their biases to establish a claim on objective truth. That's the difference - I'm not trying to make a generalizable scientific claim!

I'm trying to say that making such claims in the first place is invalid.

There is no language that is objectively more or less readable. Yes, I've read the studies. No, none of them come close to adequately addressing the confounding factor of prior exposure/education. A randomized controlled trial starting from childhood could establish such truths, but such an experiment has not been done. Until then, small-n studies that don't address this flaw in any way yet continue to make broad claims - "pop" science is perhaps not dismissive enough.