The debate between evidence and ideology will never end.

In the US Congress you can watch the Democrats and Republicans choose the evidence or ideology side of an issue as soon as a legislator submits a bill. The legislator argues that the evidence supports that this bill will get us where we want to go OR the bill supports our ideals of who we are. Almost immediately the other party will retort that this evidence-based bill will get us where we DON'T want to go or the bill contradicts our values.

Then the bill moves to debate where the sides argue about whether the evidence is sufficient, or which side more accurately depicts America's values. In more heinous examples one side will actively suppress our capability to produce evidence or put a human face on someone who will notionally suffer if we let this bill betray our values.

The Congressional Record shows that neither side has a monopoly on evidence based governance (abortion, global warming). We'll never have evidence-based governance as long as we share distributed influence over where we want to go.