[雙語翻譯]安全外文翻譯--什么是安全科學(xué)？（英文）

1、What is safety science?Terje Aven ?University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norwaya r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Available online 19 August 2013Keywords:Safety conceptSafety scienceRisk perspectiveRisk assessmenta

2、b s t r a c tThis paper addresses the issue of how to understand safety science as a concept. Several definitions ofsafety are reviewed and discussed, including the interpretations that safety is the absence of undesirab

3、leevents and accidents and that safety is the antonym of risk. Reflections are also made on what sciencemeans in relation to safety. It is argued that safety science can be viewed as knowledge about safetyrelated issues,

4、 and the development of concepts, theories, principles and methods to understand, assess,communicate and manage (in a broad sense) safety. In addition we may speak about science safety as adiscipline, covering the totali

5、ty of relevant educational programmes, journals, papers, researchers,research groups and societies, etc.? 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.1. IntroductionTo study the concept ‘‘safety science’’ the natural point of

6、 departure is the scope and aims of this journal, Safety Science. We read from the journal’s website:Safety Science serves as an international medium for research in the science and technology of human safety. It extends

7、 from safety of people at work to other spheres, such as transport, lei- sure and home, as well as every other field of man’s hazardous activities. Safety Science is multidisciplinary. Its contributors and its audi- ence

8、 range from psychologists to chemical engineers. The jour- nal covers the physics and engineering of safety; its social, policy and organisational aspects; the management of risks; the effectiveness of control techniques

9、 for safety; standardiza- tion, legislation, inspection, insurance, costing aspects, human behaviour and safety and the like. Safety Science will enable academic researchers, engineers and decision makers in companies, g

10、overnment agencies and inter- national bodies, to augment their information level on the latest trends in the field, from policy makers and management scien- tists to transport engineers. The journal focuses primarily on

11、 original research papers across its whole scope, but also welcomes state-of-the-art review papers and first hand case histories on accidents and disasters of special significance. The emphasis is on safety risks, as dis

12、tinct from health risks, but may include both (Safety Science, 2012).This text provides some insights about the concept of ‘‘safety science’’, but also leaves open some questions, such as– What is safety? The journal res

13、tricts its attention to human safety, but the concept of safety may extend beyond this area. What about environmental issues and assets, for example? And security? Many definitions of the safety concept exist, but which

14、ones are suitable in this setting?– How is safety linked to risk? As we know, the concept of risk can be understood in many ways.– What is science in this context? How is science of safety linked to research about safety

15、? The journal defines a research paper as ‘‘newly collected or analysed data, experimental or survey results, or a proposed new theory or model supported by anal- ysis and arguments (Safety Science, 2012). Hence a resear

16、ch paper seems to be either empirical research (knowledge gained by observations or experiments) or the development of new theories, methods or models. But what about work on clarifying key issues in relation to these th

17、eories, methods and models? Or performing theoretical evaluations of the pros and cons of a specific method used in risk assessment or risk management? Is such work not research? Or science?In this paper we perform a det

18、ailed analysis of these issues, the main aims being to improve our understanding of the safety sci- ence concept, and to present and argue for some new definitions of this concept. It is stressed that the paper when disc

19、ussing what safety science means, just addresses some few selected topics, to large extent linked to knowledge production of conceptual tools (such as the concept safety and methods used to describe the level of safety).

20、 These topics have not been given much attention in the literature and there is a strong need for clarifications.0925-7535/$ - see front matter ? 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.20

21、13.07.026? Tel.: +47 51831000/2267; fax: +47 51831750.E-mail address: terje.aven@uis.noSafety Science 67 (2014) 15–20Contents lists available at ScienceDirectSafety Sciencejournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssciwe

22、 acknowledge that being safe is a subjective judgment depen- dent on institutional processes to determine what is acceptable risk and what is not.It has been an aim of the above analysis to provide new insights on the tw

23、o common ways of understanding safety, by reviewing relevant work and compare the underlying ideas, and also linking the ‘‘a(chǎn)bsence of accidents’’ interpretation to established risk per- spectives which has not been done

24、before as far as the author of the present paper is aware of.Although safety is often viewed in relation to human beings, we see from the above definitions that safety can also be attributed to environment, financial ass

25、ets, etc., as risk as a concept has no such boundaries. We can draw the same conclusion when using the ‘‘a(chǎn)b- sence of undesirable events and consequence’’ type of definitions.It is common to distinguish between safety an

26、d security, where security relates to intentional situations and events (terrorist at- tacks, burglary, etc.) in contrast to safety, which covers the acci- dent type of situations and events. It is, however, no problem t

27、echnically to extend the safety/safe definitions above to also in- clude intentional situations and events, as the risk concept does not distinguish between intentional or not intentional, and ab- sence of undesirable ev

28、ents and consequences is also neutral in this respect. Nevertheless, it may be attractive in some cases to highlight when security issues are addressed in contrast to acci- dental events, and then use the term ‘‘security

29、’’.3. General reflections on what science meansThere exist a number of ideas and perspectives on what science means (see e.g. Chalmers, 1999; Hansson, 2013; Okasha, 2002). The view adopted here is that science is a means

30、 to produce knowl- edge. Hansson (2013) has formulated a definition consistent with this understanding which is used as the reference for the discus- sion in the present paper:Science (in the broad sense) is the practice

31、 that provides us with the most reliable (i.e. epistemically most warranted) statements that can be made, at the time being, on subject matter covered by the community of knowledge disciplines, i.e. on nature, our- selve

32、s as human beings, our societies, our physical constructions, and our thought constructions (Hansson, 2013).Science is often defined through the methods or methodologies that give rise to scientific knowledge. However, a

33、 method-based delimitation of science can only have temporary validity as dis- cussed by Hansson (2013).The scientific practice is characterised by a set of norms and standards, such as the four institutional imperatives

34、, Universalism, Communality, Disinterestedness, and Organised Skepticism of Merton (1942, 1973), which express (Cournand and Zuckerman 1970, p. 9421):? Universalism: scientific work is to be assessed on no other cri- ter

35、ia than its merits or significance.? Communality: the scientific community has rights to knowl- edge produced by its members, who individually may not limit access to their products.? Disinterestedness: commitment to the

36、 advancing of scientific knowledge rather than of personal self-interest (‘profit‘) should be the basis for the decisions in scientific work.? Organised skepticism: judgment of all scientific contributions should be susp

37、ended until ‘the facts are at hand’.To these four basic imperatives several others have been added, such as, the principle of individualism, faith in rationality and emo- tional neutrality, originality and humility (Tore

38、n, 1983). There has been a considerable discussion about these norms and standards inthe literature (e.g. Rothman, 1972; Toren, 1983), and there exist presently a number of different sets of norms and standards for sci-

39、entific practice. Yet, it is not difficult to see some common features when addressing similar type of situations. For example, when studying the practice of scientific work, some typical criteria are: the work needs to

40、be solid on the technicalities (precision on con- cepts, consistency, etc.); it needs to be relevant and useful in some way; and it needs to be original, i.e. providing new insights, in some sense (RCN, 2000).Obviously,

41、what knowledge (most reliable statements) means can be discussed (see e.g. Zins, 2007; Rowley, 2006, 2007). Data and information can be seen as a part of knowledge (given that they are cognitively assimilated (Hansson, 2

42、002)), but knowledge is also about beliefs. Consider, for example, a case where a group of experts believe that a system will not be able to withstand a spe- cific load. Their belief is based on data and information, mod

43、elling and analysis, but they can be wrong. The system could be able to withstand this load. Following this line of thinking, knowledge cannot of course be objective, as a belief is someone’s belief. In gen- eral, knowle

44、dge then needs to be considered as subjective or at best inter-subjective among people, for example experts.To further reflect on the meaning of science, let us open up a discussion of what research means and what is the

45、 difference be- tween these two terms. Many authors have addressed this issue on a general basis, for example Fuchs (2005, p. 5) who refers to science as being ‘‘a(chǎn) system of organised and systematic knowl- edge productio

46、n, whereas research is the basic practice of human actors in this system and can be subdivided into different re- search practices. Science is a systemic term, research is a term that focuses on processes and practices w

47、ithin the scientific sys- tem.’’ Following this line of thought, we should conceive scien- tific systems as the mutual connected unity of actors and structures, in which the actor level comprises research groups and scie

48、ntific communities, and the structure level, all institu- tions, rules, and resources of science.Krohn and Küppers (1990) argue that research is the production of knowledge, whereas science is concerned with the cre

49、ation of conditions favourable to the continuation of research. Such a dual- ism is, however, problematic, as stated by Fuchs (2005), because one can distinguish the different practices of scientists, but both activities

50、 that Krohn and Küppers mention take place in one and the same system.Applied to our case, Fuchs’ perspective on science and research means that the science of safety is the totality of relevant educa- tional progra

51、mmes, journals, papers, researchers, research groups and societies, etc., whereas research is specific work being carried out within this system, for example work leading to some papers published in scientific journals.

52、The journal Safety Science is a com- ponent of this scientific system, and the papers of the journal pres- ent the results of research conducted.In line with these ideas a scientific paper is a collective term for any te

53、xt within this system concerning knowledge production in a wide sense, whereas a research paper reports a specific piece of work according to some criteria defined by the scientific field it be- longs to (the system) and

54、 more concrete standards or goals set for this particular work.4. Discussion of how to understand ‘‘Safety science’’Following Fuchs (2005) and commented on in the previous sec- tion, we can view safety science as the tot

55、ality of relevant safety educational programmes, journals, papers, researchers, research groups and societies, etc., and the journal Safety Science can be seen as a component of this system. Now it remains to specify the