ABSTRACT
The scientific culture and Human factors/ergonomics (HFE) supply a certain direction to its research, but only a gross one. In system development, if the specialist prevents the designer from making egregious errors, it could be maintained that a primary HFE function was accomplished. As propagandists for the human in relation to technology, HFE professionals may be performing a job of work as or even more important than the preceding functions. The saving grace for HFE is that hardly anyone applies criteria of competence to the discipline, although one encounters among colleagues a certain feeling of dissatisfaction. HFE must be considered as a reaction to the dominance of technology—as a means of trying to control that dominance. Technology is tied to the profit motive; consequently, it has little appreciation of the human. HFE can be conceptualized as having a mediating role—as attempting to mitigate the worse excesses of unbridled technology.
