Debates over bioethical issues necessarily involve people from diverse circles. Scientists, health care professionals, lawyers, clergy, and representatives from other disciplines join formally trained bioethicists in assessing the appropriateness of various forays within medicine and biotechnology. It is my hypothesis that the way scientists think is often so fundamentally different that the "answers" to bioethical issues offered by the non-scientific community are perceived as (at best) only minimally relevant by those who are actually pursuing the research in question.