A ground-breaking new book, Beyond Human Error: Taxonomies and Safety Science deconstructs the conventional concept of “human error” and provides a whole new way of looking at accidents and how they might be prevented. Based on research carried out in the rail, nuclear, and defense industries, the authors show how, by concentrating solely on “human error,” systems and sociological factors are frequently ignored in contemporary safety science. They also argue that th… More >>
Beyond Human Error: Taxonomies and Safety Science
Tags: accidents, Beyond, conventional concept, defense industries, Error, Human, human error, Safety, safety science, Science, sociological factors, Taxonomies
#1 by Dave English on February 16, 2010 - 6:54 pm
This is a quality book, easy to read considering the deep philosophical and wide conceptual ground it covers. If you have enjoyed Reason, Perrow or Dekker discussing human error then I think you will find considerable value in this book. Excellent arguments about ecological validity, root cause, Heinrich’s legacy, taxonomies, distributed cognition, normal accidents, psychology of risk, and on and on. Ultimately more questions than answers, but this caused me to understand how to question a lot of the more superficial texts and methods, which may lead in interesting directions.
Not an introductory text, but an excellent addition to the field that really ties together many ideas in the safety of complex systems. Fully indexed with complete references.
Rating: 5 / 5