Sure, but he didn't find a flaw in the psychology presented in the paper, he found a flaw in the mathematics used in the paper, which he understood better than the paper's author(s).

This isn't to detract from what he did -- I'm glad he caught it and that it appears he's since made a hobby of catching others.

The problem, as other supporting replies to my comment point out, is that the notion that hobbyists working outside of academia can defeat established science has recently become a political tire fire, and this otherwise excellent article is being framed to add fuel to that fire.

It used to be that this was sort of restricted to young Earth creationists and other people that you could sort of roll your eyes at and ignore, but now this attitude has been attacking climate science and energy policy and environmental science, and now we've got an administration that has put people in positions to influence science policy in this country on the basis of politics alone. Now it's not so funny anymore.

The takeaway from the article should be on the increasing importance of a multidisciplinary approach in the sciences -- something that data geeks at HN should enthusiastically support -- and not this "amateur defeats scientists" hogwash.