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.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize I needed to put a disclaimer to hyperbole.

Besides his general criticism (which is valid), he doesn't actually address any of the findings of the studies.

Aka, cherry-picking.

The hyperbole wasn't the problem. Which you surely know.

Cherry-picking is where you pick the sources that support your case while ignoring the rest. What he did was a sweeping dismissal.

He may be right or wrong; I have no idea. But if you're going to accuse somebody of being an intellectual fraud, you should probably know what you're talking about.