Global bioethics and Potter's criticisms of the concept of human progress.

Van Rensselaer Potter, American oncologist, made his first journey into the field of philosophy forty years ago at age 51. It initiated his later reflections on the relationship between ethics and biological sciences that finally resulted in the conception of the necessity of their linkage. He formulated his principal philosophical vision by the term bioethics 28 years ago, and thus he entered into the history of bioethics as the person who “coined” its name. In the meantime, bioethics has become a broad interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary filed of debates on moral issues in science, medicine, health care, ecology, population policy, agriculture, and veterinary medicine etc., besides being an academic discipline taught at almost all outstanding universities throughout the world. In 30 years of its existence, it has met with even two encyclopedias (in 1978 and 1995), four world congresses (1 in Amsterdam in 1992, 2 in Buenos Aires in 1994, 3 in San Francisco in 1996 and the 4 in Tokyo in 1998), as well as with a number of continental, regional and national bioethics conferences, symposia, roundtables, workshops and other meetings. Many bioethics institutes, centers and departments, national and international professional associations have been established in all quarters of the world today, and a huge number of books, journals and newsletters have