To analyze the sometimes paradoxical features of contemporary science, I use the concept of ‘contradiction’, namely a problem that cannot be solved within the confines of the system in which it is set. I study such contradictions as knowledge and power, knowledge and ignorance, the True and...

Studies of ‘futures’ have hitherto focused on those that are predictable and ‘tame’, and on those that are unpredictable and ‘wild’. Here we consider a new class, the ‘feral’; which are expectations that things might be made worse by risk-based actions. The type case is the...