The phrases “best practices”, “quality improvement”, and “accountability” have become almost ubiquitous in many aspects of everyday life, including education.  Examples of this are the concern about minimizing error and enhancing quality, and in creating an underlying foundation for healthcare practice, and for education, based on the best evidence available.  What has become known as “evidence-based medicine” (EBM) or “evidence-based healthcare” (EBHC) has become less controversial and more commonplace in the professional literature and in the curricula of medical and other professional schools.  Evidence-based education (EBE) may be thought of as integrating the best external evidence about instructional design, learning, motivation, remembering, and transfer of knowledge with individual teacher expertise and learner needs and preferences.  This raises the issue of teacher-centered versus learner-centered education, with the latter implying a shared decision-making model, and begs the question, how can we best involve learners in EBE?  The applicability of this approach to enhancing basic science education is largely unexplored to date.  Some of the questions that need to be answered include: What is good evidence in medical education?  What can we do to improve and organize our knowledge base?  How can we use evidence in educational decision-making?  When should we demand evidence for program development?