  I hope to have a more complete reply to Jim Manzi’s
assessment, but I wanted to make a couple of remarks off the
cuff.  One Manzi says  Economists will sometimes make explicit
claims that “the economic science says X,” and will more
frequently make implicit claims for scientific knowledge by
flatly asserting the known truth of some predictive assertion.
This is normally a statement made around some specific policy
question – we should (or should not) execute the following
stimulus program; we should (or should not) raise the minimum
wage right now, etc.  . . . all we have is an informed opinion
of the type we might have from an expert historian rendering an
opinion about something the likelihood that Libya would revert
to an authoritarian government within ten years if it overthrew
Gaddafi  Its important to distinguish between economics as
science and economics as a policy driver. Manzi is focusing on
economic statements that are made as policy drivers and saying
it is only informed opinion. Yet this inform