Understanding of the intellectually intricate and practically complex production of novel scientific research was for many decades a central goal of science history. Yet neither careful excavation of the byways and pathways of experimental or theoretical work, nor the provision of careful insights into the individual’s practice as a member of an investigative community are nowadays common. The actual practice of scientific investigation has seemingly evaporated from many publications on science history. What we often find instead are displays of pictures of apparatus, of people working at tables, of (for modern science) minutes of meetings, of computer printouts or even EMAILs. All are, or can be, quite illuminating. But the focus of the resulting account will not usually be on the intellectually intricate and practically complex production of innovative scientific research to which this remnant material bears witness. Larry Holmes convincgly argued that “The historical study of science ... shows how ideas come into and emerge from sustained explorations of aspects of nature that can be confronted in the laboratory, the observatory, the museum, or the field. It is attentive to the ways in which scientists organize themselves, share power and authority, promote their interests, and award or withhold recognition; but it does not forget that scientists do all these things in the first place in order to facilitate the investigative activity around which they orient their lives.” We’ll consider the kind of work that for long stood at the center of the field, and which should do so again.

Although the history of science may be having an institutional crisis, in my view the real crisis is in our loss of connection with science and scientists, which is directly linked a widespread neglect of scientific content by historians. This situation has been exacerbated by an unfortunate conflation: because a good deal of low-quality history has been written by those who focus on scientific content (consider the “retired scientist”), professional historians of science have acquired a disdain for history focused on scientific content. But good history, even contextualist history, can pay proper attention to scientific content. The opposition between content-focused and context-focused history is spurious: no full-fledged understanding of content could be acquired without at least a minimal understanding of context, and vice versa. More positively, doing innovative content-based history is the most promising way to strengthen our connection with practicing scientists again. We can offer historical work to delight scientists and all those who appreciate science — by bringing to light the intellectual challenges that had to be overcome in learning what we now take for granted, the valuable scientific knowledge buried in the past, the contentious debates that occupied past scientists, and the contingent and complex paths by which scientific knowledge has evolved. Such historical knowledge makes scientific content richer and more interesting. Engagement with science education provides the most promising direction of work in this regard, and this is an important dimension of “applied history of science” that we have largely lost sight of in recent decades.