This feels like half good science (be skeptical of outlandish results) and bad science (can't be true! so... dismiss it?). Humans think in narratives, which is why every time the stock market goes down 3 points it's becaise "investors are nervous about Syria" then when it rebounds it's "investors unfazed by Syria" (or whatever).
The scientific approach should be to come up with a plausible narrative and then do everything possible to discredit it. If the narrative survives, it is likely accurate. This hungry judges narrative seems inaccurate for a lot of reasons, the double dip being the easiest reason for dismissal. But it does still beg the question: why this pattern? Are cases staggered in a specific way? How many cases were looked at? Does this pattern still hold and could we sit in on a case and see it happen in realtime?
As scientists in a field dismissing an outlandish result out of hand is horribly dangerous. As lay consumers of science who don't have the time to double check every paper we hear about we should absolutely ignore counter intuitive papers until such time as they're replicated and accepted by the relevant scientific community.
It could be argued he is too aggressive in saying we should dismiss it outright, but for it this finding to be scientifically accepted it demands replication.
It's also not out of line to make a loose "common sense" appeal with exaggerated findings and demand more rigor. Even if this study was replicated, it would still need more exploration of the mechanism and unknown variables. We don't have enough information about what the judges did during lunch recess, as I doubt what they ate is a matter of record.
Study has big procedural failures (assuming randomness with no evidence), big analysis flaws (assuming causation out of correlation), and gets into a result that is against nearly all the evidence out there.
The scientific approach should be to come up with a plausible narrative and then do everything possible to discredit it. If the narrative survives, it is likely accurate. This hungry judges narrative seems inaccurate for a lot of reasons, the double dip being the easiest reason for dismissal. But it does still beg the question: why this pattern? Are cases staggered in a specific way? How many cases were looked at? Does this pattern still hold and could we sit in on a case and see it happen in realtime?