Foreword by Mario Giampietro, series Editor Preface: Descartes and the rediscovery of ignorance Jerome Ravetz Introduction: Cartesian Dreams Part 1: Original Matters 1. Plenty of Room at the Top 2. The Tower of Babel, Pentecostal Science, and the Language of Epidemics 3. Love Life or Fear Death? Cartesian Dreams and Awakenings Part 2: Techno-Science and Innovation 4. The Ontological Objection to Life TechnoSciences 5. The dream of the Internet of Things: Do we really want, can and need to be smart? 6. From Biobanks to Genetic Digital Networks: Why official pre-identified values may not work 7. Geoengineering dreams Part 3: Quality in A World Of Connected Bytes 8. Animals and beggars: imaginative numbers in the real world 9. Evidence-based Policy at the End of the Cartesian Dream: the case of mathematical modelling
