Kirked thank you for your reply.  However my first question was not asking for the definition of evidence-based medicine but whether there are any evidence-based doctors.  For probably more than 50% of my practice, there is little or no EBM available – patient groups are too small, blinding is not always possible etc.  I suspect this goes for most of us but in these areas it is not EBM that guides us but opinion, experience or intuition.  My practice in these areas is evidence-based insofar as it makes good sense to me based on my knowledge, experience and my view of medicine, but I may not be able to convince a sceptic entirely.  I don’t consult a Cochrane review before I give a child ceftriaxone for meningococcal septicaemia - there are no placebo-controlled double blinded studies that tell us whether this works or not.  I believe it does, as do most of my colleagues.  Sometimes our experience or opinion are wrong.  Most of what we believe we receive second, third or even a hundredth hand.  I have never personally verified the speed of light or the existence of Pluto.  I hope these things are based on good evidence but it requires me to trust in the process of science and the good faith of those who report such things and re-report it in textbooks, journals etc.  That is a leap of faith in itself.  My point is that ‘evidence based doctors’ is not a meaningful label and most of what most doctors believe is not based on EBM or even of hard scientific evidence, but often taken on trust and what seems to make good sense.

These considerations also apply when asking whether there is evidence for God’s existence.  I don’t believe that God’s existence can be proved or disproved by EBM, or p-values.  However God’s existence (as the one by whom and for whom the entire universe and human life exists) makes sense in itself, and makes sense of the universe for me in many different ways –

• sense of who I am as a unique individual in history (and not merely one collection of evolved atoms among multi-billions)

• sense of the fact that my brain, although composed of atoms buzzing with indeterminate quantum mechanical processes, can correctly reason (this is difficult to defend on the basis of either a deterministic or chaotic universe),

• sense of the fact that there is something rather than nothing (even a universe that started from quantum imbalances in ‘nothing’ has to assume the possibility of quantum processes)

• sense of the fact that there are intelligent observers who can make sense of the universe (Nothing in our evolutionary history requires this.  God is a more parsimonious explanation than the multiverse),

• sense of the fine-tuning of the universe (again I think God is a better fit by Occam’s razor than the infinite-improbability drive of the multiverse)

• sense of my appreciation of beauty and order in the universe (quite unnecessary in my evolutionary past)

• sense of my moral instincts of fairness and justice (which are not necessarily the same as my moral practice and cannot be derived from it)

• sense of my experience of God’s presence

Another way of looking at this is the question of pattern-recognition and finding meaning in life and in the universe.  I cannot explain to you exactly what I am recognizing in a familiar face,  but I can recognize the face nonetheless.  And when you see a pattern emerge in one of those black-and-white shadow pictures beloved of visual illusions pages, it is then very difficult not to see the pattern, but often difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t yet ‘seen’ it.  The theory of common descent with modification makes sense of the pattern of life forms in the world in so many ways – once the concept has become ‘real’ to you, and after that it is difficult to conceive of biological life in any other way.

I think people of faith have seen a pattern or meaning in their lives and in the universe in which God makes sense to them.  It is then very difficult for them not to see the pattern.  They often struggle to articulate how exactly they recognize it, but that doesn’t mean there is no pattern or meaning.  The question I would ask is whether people without a belief in God are any more evidence based.  Have they seen a different pattern or have they merely not (yet) been able to see the pattern that others have?

That’s very brief, and there is probably nothing in that which clinches it for you - nothing pathognomonic of God that you can see in the world - but I hope you can see that people who are doctors and believe in God use experience and intuition, and trust alongside the available evidence just as any other rational people do. 

If you want to read something taking a different view to the four horsemen,  “The Reason for God” by Tim Keller attempts to explain, “how the belief in a Christian God is, in fact, a sound and rational one.”

http://www.amazon.com/Reason-God-Belief-Age-Skepticism/dp/1594483493

As for the man teaching children that the earth is no more than 6000 years old, you might be pleased to hear that there are some Christians who groan with frustration at the scientific ignorance displayed by other Christians.  Christianity and modern science are not in opposition to each other and I see them as complementary.  I have recently published on this topic, specifically explaining to Christians who do not come from a scientific background the scientific evidence behind evolution. (http://www.amimykeepersbrother.com/ )