Scientific and engineering disciplines advance by establishing, refining, and occasionally rejecting theories. A key part of this process is the constant use of experience (more particularly the results of 'experiments') to challenge orthodoxy. One marker of the vigour of an academic discipline is how much of this challenge comes from within. Safety engineering appears to advance mainly by "playing catch up" i.e. responding to the challenges presented by advances in other disciplines including psychology, human factors, and organisational science. This paper considers whether the trend is inevitable, or whether advances in safety engineering can be more systematic and pro-active.
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