Read the passage and answer the following questions:
The standard methods of science proceed from observations to hypotheses to testing these hypotheses in controlled experiments. However, it would be a mistake to suppose that every hypothesis that comes out of observation lends itself to rigorous scientific scrutiny. There are, in fact, many questions that can be asked of science that science is not in a position, for one reason or another, to answer. (Such unanswerable questions cannot strictly be termed hypotheses since a hypothesis must be testable.)
The recent debate over melanoma (skin cancer) screening provides an interesting example of this area of ‘science that is not scientific’ or ‘trans-science’ as a few eminent thinkers have termed it. Let’s start with the observations. There has been an increase in the number of early-stage melanoma cases over the last twenty years. The incidence, measured in cases per 15 thousand people, in the United States, has doubled since 1896. As a result of the reported numbers, some physicians recommend screening for melanoma. The ‘hypothesis’ that is implied here is that screening for melanoma will decrease the death rate from the disease. But how do we test it?
The conventional way to evaluate the effectiveness of a medical technique is the double-blind trial. In this case, we would have to assign some people to receive screening and some control people would not be screened. Then we would look at the death rate for melanoma in the two groups. The problems are logistic and ethical. If the answers are to reach statistical significance we need very large numbers and we need to follow people over whole lifetimes, neither of which is practical. And how do we decide who is to receive what might be a life-saving screening and who will be denied its potential benefits? The data collected thus far on the effectiveness of screening is, not surprisingly, equivocal.