Читать книгу Cindynics, The Science of Danger - Guy Planchette - Страница 10

Ever since man has existed, he has always been confronted with dangers that he had to face if he wanted to survive, leaving him mostly helpless and afraid of the forces of nature. Ancient populations, considering dangers as a divine punishment, devoted themselves to oracles [DES 03].

Later, the needs of development, domination and trade brought new forms of danger. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the notion of risk emerged when, in order to obtain a better situation, humans sought to confront danger. It was then considered as an accident that man could try to prevent. It was only on the basis of the geometry of chance, initiated in 1650 by Blaise Pascal, that a first stage of probabilistic studies led to the establishment of mortality statistics [LEB 00]. Since the 18th century, theology and philosophy could not justify such a manifestation of divine anger, it was only after the earthquake that struck Lisbon in 1755 that the notion of responsibility for the positive and negative consequences of personal decisions appeared. The concept of risk was then born, and gradually, damage ceased to be perceived as divine punishment.

To counter the danger, each human being, each community, and then each profession has therefore invented, adapted and perfected solutions according to its specificity, the history of the nature of the difficulties encountered and the types of risks.

However, since its appearance at the end of the Middle Ages, the notion of risk has gradually obscured the concept of danger because it “has been progressively enriched by its contact with the disciplines that it has invaded, namely in turn probabilistic calculation, game theories, economics, engineering and technological risk control, psychology and risk perception, and sociology” [KER 11].

All of these developments in the area of risk have led to a multitude of concepts and methods¹ that make it possible to achieve safety adapted to the context of activities, better operating safety of the equipment used and an ability to assess and control risks.

However, have we really lost awareness of the notion of danger?

For example, let us look at recent milestones of progress: