Concepts that refer to trends like globalization and medicalization have, of late, become a hallmark of public debates. The logic of such concepts is that the same word can refer both to good and bad developments, partly depending on the chosen viewpoint. Hardly anyone opposes the global enforcement of human rights, but the global liberation of trade is sometimes viewed with suspicion. In a similar vein, advances in medicine are seldom seen as a bad thing, but medical solutions to social issues can be seen as problematic.This research was funded by Ethical and Social Aspects of Bioinformatics (ESABI), a project coordinated by Professor Matti Häyry and financed between 2004 and 2007 by the Academy of Finland (SA 105139). The authors also acknowledge the stimulus and support of the European project on delimiting the research concept and the research activities (EU-RECA) sponsored by the European Commission, DG-Research, as part of the Science and Society research program—6th Framework in the preparation of this paper.