The idea of evidence-based medicine is developing very fast since 1990., but hopes that scientific evidence could contribute to improvement of human lot are much older. Sociology, economics and younger social sciences such as program evaluation, social policy, social work or social management have had great aspirations for improving practices with policymaking, managing or helping individuals or communities in social sphere. When evidence-based medicine have met those older traditions it reinvigorated old hopes and ideas. It is especially true for social work. The goal of this article is to present evidence-based medicine movement and its main ideas in the context of social policy, social management and social work — three broad categories. The second one is rather new and means managing practices in social services organisations and discourses about them. The main conclusion is that evidence-based program has several weaknesses and could be dismissed as undemocratic and unrealistic, but reflexive citizens, social services clients and politicians of today’s world still demand effective and efficient solutions for social and individual problems. How do we know which solutions have those desirable attributes? Only scientific method, especially social experimentation, could give us reliable and valid answers to that question.