From Heinrich to Dekker, the safety world loves to use the word ‘science’ to validate what it does. The word ‘science’ in safety is a just a brand, like MAGA, it doesn’t mean anything ‘scientific’ is going on just as MAGA is making nothing ‘great’. It’s just more ‘noise’. But, goodness me, its sounds good to the ears of Safety.
It’s like using the word ‘professional’ as a brand/label without recourse to the foundational nature of professionalism – Ethics or Modal Meaning. Without a well-articulated ethic (which Safety doesn’t have), the word ‘professional’ is meaningless. Similarly, without a well-articulated Methodology of science, what most often emerges is ‘Scientism’.
Scientism, is the ideological sense of science that limits investigation to selected boundaries of scientific method and a narrow approach to knowledge. For example, by excluding exploration of anything non-measurable (eg. metaphysics, the unconscious) Scientism delivers a delusion (see Sheldrake The Science Delusion – https://argos.vu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/the-science-delusion-rupert-sheldrake.pdf). In Scientism, there is no open enquiry but rather enquiry limited to the assumptions of Materialism, Positivism and Rationalism.
Ever since Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Kuhn-SSR-2ndEd.pdf), Laktos on Science and Pseudoscience (https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Lakatos-Science.pdf), Feyerbend in Knowledge, Science and Relativism (https://cursosfilos.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/paul_k-_feyerabend_john_preston_knowledge_sciebookfi.pdf) and Dewdney – Beyond Reason, 8 Great Problems That Reveal the Limits of Science (http://lib.ysu.am/disciplines_bk/5fde49453f6625f0487d5b684408e73c.pdf), we have known that Scientism is not about open enquiry. Indeed, the scientism fraternity simply reproduce (cultural reproduction) as an ‘information ecology’ and hermeneutic, that satisfies the expectations and biases of a narrow community.
So, let’s see how Safety uses the word ‘science’.
Nothing that Heinrich developed in 1931 is about ‘science’. There is no empirical evidence for Heinrichs pyramid, it’s a semiotic concoction. There is no evidence for event causation like dominos (p. 14), it’s a semiotic concoction. Yet, the book is anchored to the word ‘science’ in the title. You can read more about the non-science of Heinrich here: https://safetyrisk.net/the-non-science-of-heinrich/. Furthermore, when you read Heinrich and the extraordinary emotional and psychological irrationalities, you know that there is nothing scientific in Heinrich. If you want a copy of his book email me and I’ll send you a copy admin@spor.com.au
Similarly, there is no evidence for the effectiveness of a coloured risk matrix, it’s a semiotic concoction. There is no evidence for causation as swiss-cheese, it’s a semiotic concoction or the bow-tie, it’s a semiotic concoction. There is no evidence for the Bradley Curve, it’s a semiotic concoction. There is no evidence for Dekker’s linear tunnel, it’s a semiotic concoction.
When you venture into the many semiotics of Safety in such a way, you quickly see that semiotics of dominoes, curves, tunnels, bow-ties, swiss-cheese and pyramids are symbolic attributions, not science.
Similarly, when you explore the many taboos and silences of Safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-culture-silences/) you discover that Safety is a religious and myth-making activity. For example, the denial of fallibility in zero ideology (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/zero-the-great-safety-delusion/) the demands for ‘belief’ and faith is overwhelming (eg. Global safety Conference 2017)
Indeed, when DuPont tells us to ‘Believe the Impossible’ (https://safetyrisk.net/believe-the-impossible-and-speak-nonsense-to-people/) we know that safety is a religious activity not a scientific activity. Don’t you know, ‘Safety Saves Lives’.
So, when you see the language of ‘safety science’ the key questions to ask are: what is the founding methodology? What is excluded from discussion/debate? Where is the evidence for semiotic claims? What ethic is built into the method? We also see at the so-called ‘Safety Science Lab’ the adoration and validation of zero as a ‘moral’ goal (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). This is not science but religious belief.
For example, have a look at Dekker’s Foundations of Safety Science and discover all that is out-of-bounds for discussion. Explore what is NOT discussed such as the nature of the human and collective unconscious, the semiotics of safety, embodied being or ethics and personhood, and you will find that this is about Scientism not science. Have a look at how Dekker interpolates error as ‘drift’ and ask what do we ‘drift’ from? What if ‘drift’ is simply ‘realised fallibility’? What kind of model of ‘safety culture’ has been normalised by Dekker’s discussion? The devil is in the detail and assumptions of the text that demonstrate a bias towards Rationalism and Materialism. Explore the semiotic of the text and ask how science is demonstrated in its semiotics. Eg Page 366. How is Safety portrayed?
Or have a look at the assumptions of so-called ‘Resilience Engineering’ (p. 393), where error and blame are demonised and praise and positive psychology are made sacred.
Whilst we know that resilience cannot be ‘engineered’, the language (metaphor) is made myth by the Safety Differently (SD) group. Just look in the SD literature at the avoidance in the exploring ecological nature of persons in culture and the bias towards the focus on systems. Look at the discussion of complexity and no mention of Safety as a Wicked Problem (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-wicked-problem/). And because safety is just a complex problem, it is just challenging but ‘fixable’ and controllable, you just have to understand the world as Dekker, and salvation (atonement) will be realised. Why is the approach to resilience only defined by reading the literature of safety? Why is the mythology and mechanistic model of ‘functional resonance’ accepted as systemic truth? Why is a deontological ethic normalised in this discussion?
None of this is ‘science’.
Similarly, have a look at Le Coze (2020) in Safety Science Research, Evolution, Challenges and New Directions and explore at what is excluded. None of any of the concerns in the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) get a mention in this text. Yet SPoR has been about for over 20 years, it just doesn’t publish in safety journals. Safety Science research is a selective examination of what has been deemed ‘safety science’ by an academic safety community. Analyse the discourse and Discourse (Critical Discourse Analysis) and see what is missing, what is silent and, what boundaries are placed around the meaning of ‘safety science’. For example, is there any discussion in the text on semiotics, the unconscious or ethics. Even the discussion in the text on ‘Visualising Safety’ falls short of an exploration of visualising safety. For example, the diagram/semiotic on safety as a socio-natural-technical system (p. 165) includes none of the knowledge or interests of SPoR.
What is examined in the visualisation of safety is information from within the academic fraternity and, a published papers approach to risk. Whilst the map produced on the socio-natural-technical system is a neat semiotic, it is not ‘science’. It is a semiotic interpretation of what Le Coze views as the safety world. Even the dichotomy of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences in the diagram, demonstrates through the use of metaphor, that this is not science. Indeed, all of the chosen metaphors in the text and semiotics are not science. A concept map is a semiotic interpretation not science. I have written previously about ‘safety science’ here: https://safetyrisk.net/the-non-science-of-safety/
So, next time you see the marketing of ’safety science’ ask some simple questions: what is being excluded? Where is the power? What are the silences? What semiotics are presented? What evidence supports any semiotics? What metaphors are used? What sources are used in argument? What kind of knowledge is validated and what is rejected? What is the source for this ‘view’? What is its bias? Is there openness to Transdisciplinary and forms of knowledge outside of the safety worldview?
Prof. Robert Long
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Matthew Probasco says
Brilliant work! Thank you for calling out the obvious gaps within the safety profession.
Rob Long says
Thanks Matthew. There are many don’t want to see the forest for the trees. Safety is so deeply immersed in its own myths and obviously wants to stay stuck in them. Myth making can be so profitable in this industry.