The difference is that Nature will change their position (as much as they have an editorial position) as new facts come to light. I was never convinced by the argument that the scientific method is like a religion when it came from creationists and I'm not any more convinced when free-market fundamentalists use it as an excuse to ignore facts. (I won't disagree with your comparison of the Economist to Astrology Today other than to say that I find the Economist to be much better written).

>there is a metric pants-load of evidence of the free market system producing better results in terms of individual wealth, individual liberty, life expectancy, and quality of life than other systems

There is also plenty of empirical evidence that free market fundamentalism has produced worse outcomes. The academic literature is full of such analysis. An example:

Stiglitz, J.E, 2004, "Capital-market Liberalization, Globalization, and the IMF", Oxf Rev Econ Policy (2004) 20 (1): 57-71.
http://oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/57.abstract (PDF: http://www.relooney.info/00_New_951.pdf )

One of the most controversial aspects of globalization is capital-market liberalization—not so much the liberalization of rules governing foreign direct investment, but those affecting short-term capital flows, speculative hot capital that can come into and out of a country. In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF and the US Treasury tried to push capital-market liberalization around the world, encountering enormous opposition, not only from developing countries, but from economists who were less enamoured of the doctrines of free and unfettered markets, of market fundamentalism, that were at that time being preached by the international economic institutions. The economic crises of the late 1990s and early years of the new millennium, which were partly, or even largely, attributable to capital-market liberalization, reinforced those reservations. This paper takes as its point of departure a recent IMF paper, to provide insights both into how the IMF could have gone so wrong in its advocacy of capital-market liberalization and into why capital-market liberalization has so often led to increased economic instability, not to economic growth.

It might be interesting to go back and look at how the Economist reported on the IMF paper discussed at the start of that article (the FT reported on it, so it seems to have had mainstream awareness). I'm not sure which is better: ignoring it completely, or reporting it but ignoring the content and continuing on with an editorial policy that contradicts the things being reported in the same paper.

Edit:
I agree with JDShu below when (s)he says

There is a difference between the free market dogmatism displayed in the Economist, and the simple idea that the free market works better than planned economies. And yes, free markets fail, this is a staple idea in economics.

I'm not suggesting that the Economist should be come Marxism Today, or that they should not advocate the many positives of free markets, but that dogmatic adherence to financial deregulation is not a neutral position that is backed up by facts; it has plenty of problems, as most economists will tell you.