A Logical Fallacy is faulty reasoning to reach a desired conclusion based on faith/belief. It is because Safety is such a religious activity, it is anchored to many of these logical fallacies.

You can view the most common logical fallacies and this poster here: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/pdf/FallaciesPoster24x36.pdf

Let’s look at a few of the common logical fallacies believed in Safety.

Strawman: This is most common, when Safety is criticised. And this is exhibited often in responses to blogs. Many don’t actually read blogs but rather read into blogs trying to prove the assumption they brought to the blog. A common strategy is to confuse critical thinking with negativity and then of course deeming negativity wrong. Of course, neither criticism or praise are inherently or ethically ‘wrong’ but both are interpreted according to an undeclared belief.

Appeal to Authority: A classic in any Safety presentation, where something must be believed because a favourite of Safety is quoted. This happens all the time with the likes of Dekker, Conklin, Reason etc., who have somehow been made heroes or self-declared gurus of the industry. This is how Conklin gets away with making 5 principles ‘truths’ that are not (https://safetyrisk.net/declaring-what-is-by-what-isnt-hop-as-traditional-safety/ ). Once you have declared a hierarchy in safety authority, you instantly stop learning.

Special Pleading: The art of linguistic gymnastics is what Safety does so well. Once it is clear that the ideology of zero is false, Safety invents new rhetoric for the same thing. We see this is nonsense discourse like: ‘1% safer’, ‘towards zero’ and ‘vision zero’. One thing zero-safety mythology always ensures, that it never talks about fallibility or personhood.

Black and White: One of the favourites of Safety is binary thinking. We see this in the nonsense question: ‘how many injuries do you want today’. Such questions of entrapment are common to religious fundamentalism where the notion of non-belief or median belief is unacceptable. In Safety, there can only be one answer, zero. We also see this in how Safety loves the binary nonsense of Kahneman in Fast and Slow. Of course, this logic is in denial of all the evidence that humans learn developmentally. But when safety wants to believe something, evidence is irrelevant.

Gambler’s Fallacy: Heinrich and others invented this fallacy that Safety adores. Armed with its silly ratio of incidents/injuries to likelihood of fatality, it populates most safety texts. This belief has more in common with religious superstition than anything logical or rational. Yet Safety continues to count and report on injury rates in monthly reports as if injury rates are an indicator of something.

Ad Hominem: This is common to most religious and political discourse. In this way one doesn’t have to think about the argument of an opponent, just call the opponent names or demonise them. We see this in ‘black bans’ and various forms of censorship. I remember being told by so called authorities when I was studying Theology about who I should and shouldn’t read and made sure my first purchased were from the banned list. We also see this in mono-disciplinary Safety that only researches views that confirm agreed assumptions eg. that the brain is a computer.

Loaded Question: Safety is good at this one because, based on the indoctrination of a safety qualification the truth of Safety is made absolute and must not be questioned. In this way most questioning in Safety is shaped by the assumptions of Safety as if Safety is the only lens in which to view living and being. The best way to learn in safety is not to buy books with ‘safety’ in the title.

Bandwagon: We see this often in the propaganda of safety associations. Just because one can gather up a large group of people to an event, the beliefs associated with that event is made to confirm righteousness or truth. There is no validation in numbers as was discovered in Germany in 1939-1945. The same fallacy of ‘might is right’ congregates with this logic as does the power of ‘groupthink’.

False Cause: This is a classic in the safety industry that loves the linearality of swiss-cheese, bow-tie and pyramids. Once the myth of linear enactivity is confirmed by a symbol, it must be believed. The last thing Safety wants to admit is that it is fooled by randomness (Taleb). This is how Fundamental Attribution Error works, so well torn to shreds by Tim Minchin (https://youtu.be/G1juPBoxBdc?si=4Oo2qw9EJLJL5I3b) or this one (https://vimeo.com/827460241) which is very funny.

Appeal to Nature: The Bradley Curve is complete and utter nonsense created by zero ideology to sell zero. The curve commences with the projection that humans have a ‘natural instinct’ to harm (https://safetyrisk.net/the-dangerous-and-harmful-bradley-curve/). Of course, the opposite is the case! All humans have a natural energy for Allostasis, the preservation, sustaining and maintaining of life and being. But Safety doesn’t like that idea if you are busy selling the ideology of zero.

Appeal to Emotion: We see this in the silly slogan ‘make safety personal’. Of course, no-one explains exactly what this means but it is used in so many ways to brutalise people in the name of good. We see this most often in the nonsense language of ‘just culture’ which is never about what Justice means or culture. Unfortunately, when political loyalty is at stake in safety, any criticism of ‘make safety personal’ means you are anti-safety.

Ambiguity: A classic in the safety industry used to mis-represent the truth. Like in HOP declaring a selective principle is a ‘truth’ when it is not or, Heinrich declaring his gobbledygook as ‘self-evident’ truth.  Unfortunately, without some competence in critical thinking many of these declarations of mis-truth are believed by blind following.

Personal Incredulity: One of the things Safety hates is complexity or worse a ‘wicked problem’. Safety knows that safety is simple, the world is objective, black and white and no-one outside the safety fence must be listened to. We see this is the AIHS BoK and safety conferences where it’s always the same old stuff confirming the same old beliefs. Therefore, anyone who states that risk and safety is a ‘wicked problem’ must be demonised.

When one is committed to a religious belief such as zero, all of these logical fallacies come into play.

We see the same when fads like S2, SD, NV, HOP, RE become an alternate cult using many of the same fallacies believed by traditional safety in their own discourse: eg. anchored to systems, performance and controls. The reason why these fads keep changing in rhetoric is the continual search for a methodology that they don’t have. Slogans and mantras are not methodology.

One of the things we study in SPoR in Linguistics is the way language is used in all these fallacies and how metaphor is crucial to understanding underlying philosophies in disposition. It doesn’t matter what slogans one trots out when the metaphors are the same. Unless there is a change in worldview/methodology there will eventually be no change in method.

If you want to learn about how linguistics is used in Safety and what to do about it, the next program commences in September: https://safetyrisk.net/next-module-on-linguistics-and-risk-in-september/