Judging by the existence of this later post, it appears Eliezer eventually changed his mind about this.
Is there some level of evidence more convincing than study published in reputable, peer-reviewed journal with lots of replication?
I would say so. For instance, the claim that letting go of my pen in mid-air will cause it to fall onto the floor and not the ceiling. The above is backed up by so much evidence and in so many different ways* that it is even if a replicated study were to contradict it, I would continue to believe it (it's one of the few claims that really does deserve a subjective probability in the region of 99.9%).
I don't know about Yudkowsky,...
Today's post, Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary was originally published on 20 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was A Fable of Science and Politics, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.