A sample composed of volunteers from a particular usenet group doesn't seem like it would have people of equal skill in each of the languages in question, however. I'd expect that you'd get a different language winning in each newsgroup you sampled from.

Is that study a joke? Do you really take it seriously?

No, but when people bring up "C vs Lisp" or "Java vs Lisp" it comes up. I don't give it much due however.