ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the origins of the taxonomy developed by Jens Rasmussen, its usefulness, and the question of whether the approach it uses is still the best one for safety management. It attempts to answer the question what is Skill Rule Knowledge (SRK), how was it developed, and is it still the most effective approach 30 years on. The chapter looks at the intellectual roots of SRK and considers the empirical evidence for its validity. It might be argued that although the ideas which lie behind SRK are problematic, it may still work in practice as an error taxonomy. Rasmussen's concept of knowledge-based behaviour was created to deal with an obvious problem of cognitivism: there are a finite number of rules which can be stored in the human brain. Cognitivism tends to propose static internal cognitive structures that stand in a direct causal relationship to external behaviours.
