Once Safety adopts a model it loves, it is impossible to get rid of it. Such is the ‘sunk cost’ of Safety Culture and commitment to the symbols it worships.

There are many examples, none have anything to do with ‘safety science’ but are rather semiotic addictions. For example, The Bradley Curve.

The key to understanding the assumptions of the Bradley Curve is where it starts.

Most of the time Safety repeats this symbol and then affirms its assumption, that humans have a ‘natural instinct’ to harm. What follows is the logic, that if you then adopt the proposed system being sold (DuPont or whatever) that zero is achievable. There are many variations of the curve on the safety market being circulated daily in the hundreds, such is how safety culture works.

In Safety, once you use a common accepted safety symbol, it becomes a warm and fuzzy affirmation, that the safety club accepts. Such is the comfort Safety seeks in its common symbols and semiotics.

The trouble is, humans do NOT have a ‘natural instinct’ to harm and such an assertion flies in the face of all we know about evolutions, sustaining life, Allostasis and Autopoiesis. Indeed, the Bradley Curve is a symbol of dishonesty. It simply projects lies about human personhood. It is a deceitful model, that safety loves because it provides a symbol for selling whatever product that follows.

Now that we have AI, there seems to be any number of varieties of the silly Bradley Curve. Yes, the graphics look fancy. Yes, the curve is attractive because it promises a psychological image of reduction. But it is based on a lie. The assumptions of the curve are simply NOT true. Have a look at some of these:

The examples are endless.

When Safety loves a myth and anchors it to a symbol, watch out, the sacred is created and it is ‘heresy’ to reject it. Ah, what the Bradley Curve really offers is comfort. Like any of the accepted symbols in safety. Simply repeating them is a badge of membership to the safety club.

This is the bedrock of safety culture: myths, symbols. Belief, repetition, worship, gurus, propaganda, disinformation, addictions, marketing and the promise that the Bradley Curve is a ‘method’ for ‘certainty’.

Most who regurgitate the Bradley Curve don’t know they are endorsing a falsehood about the nature of persons. Such is the power of myth.

But like any other safety myth like ‘blame fixes nothing’ or ‘context drives behaviour’ unless one applies a small amount of critical thinking to its assumptions and symbols, nothing will improve. The same applies to any of the other symbols in safety such as Heinrich’s pyramid, Reason’s swiss-cheese or the risk matrix.

None of these symbols are ever accompanied by a declaration of assumption about personhood and are therefore fundamentally unethical.

So, is safety about to dump the Bradley Curve, not likely. It has too much invested in its myth.

If you are interested in a positive and constructive way forward in risk where safety sacred symbols are rejected in favour of evidence-based semiotics, you can explore any of the free resources on offer in SPoR.

https://safetyrisk.net/free-stuff-from-spor/