If the term ‘evidence‐based medicine’ conveys more than is conveyed by the word medicine, then there must be a way to distinguish between evidence‐based medicine and non‐evidence‐based medicine. In particular, there must be a logically acceptable way to classify medical decisions as justified or unjustified by scientific evidence. In this essay I examine the nature of medical theories, the nature of the evidence that is produced by empirical tests of medical theories, and the relation of medical decisions to both. I conclude that attempts to classify medical decisions as justified or unjustified by scientific evidence have no foundation in logic and that the term ‘evidence‐based medicine’ is logically indistinguishable from the term ‘medicine’. The use of the term ‘evidence‐based medicine’ calls for a new type of authoritarianism in medical practice.