I would say that if the ability of economists to predict and understand the economy is taken into account, then noobs vs econs opinions is not a good predictor of quality of opinion.

Even on ET: Shall we do a countdown of oil prices? Even the decoupling theory is still a bit under the "to be seen" category (although in the short term watching the UK is surely to be "fun" and to go as expected).

The "specialist" is overrated, especially in soft sciences.