Yes, the opinions of one pop-sci writer are just as well-studied and well-understood as something that has been carefully examined since 1543.

Your jerkiness aside, his reply to that seems clear and cogent. In particular, this seems like a reasonable criticism: http://nusi.org/the-science/review-of-the-literature/

It's not even clear to me that the post you link and his reply are necessarily at odds. A calorie-metering approach and a shift in diet could both be effective weight-loss strategies in that they would be acting at different points in the process and using different resources.