Global bioethics -- myth or reality?
BACKGROUND
There has been debate on whether a global or unified field of bioethics exists. If bioethics is a unified global field, or at the very least a closely shared way of thinking, then we should expect bioethicists to behave the same way in their academic activities anywhere in the world. This paper investigates whether there is a 'global bioethics' in the sense of a unified academic community.


METHODS
To address this question, we study the web-linking patterns of bioethics institutions, the citation patterns of bioethics papers and the buying patterns of bioethics books.


RESULTS
All three analyses indicate that there are geographical and institutional differences in the academic behavior of bioethicists and bioethics institutions.


CONCLUSIONS
These exploratory studies support the position that there is no unified global field of bioethics. This is a problem if the only reason is parochialism. But these regional differences are probably of less concern if one notices that bioethics comes in many not always mutually understandable dialects.
Holm
Søren
S
Cardiff Institute of Society, Health and Ethics, Schools of Law and Social Sciences, 53 Park Place, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3AT, United Kingdom. holms@cardiff.ac.uk.
Williams-Jones
Bryn
B
D026683:Advisory Committees; D015706:Bibliometrics; D026688:Bioethical Issues; D001675:Bioethics / Q000193:education / Q000639:trends*; D001877:Books; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D026822:Ethicists; D038622:Internationality; D020407:Internet; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012961:Sociology; D013782:Textbooks as Topic; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States; D014495:Universities