ABSTRACT
In France the history of science turned on the question of intellectual continuity. In the twentieth century this emergent discipline was the subject of debate between revolutionaries and traditionalists. Just as the history of art, literature, and philosophy begins with individuals and their works - with doxography - so the history of science begins with particular discoveries and not disciplines and social context; and the basic question, again posed by Bacon, was the role of the individual in scientific advance. Pierre Duhem was a distinguished physicist, classically trained scholar, and devout Catholic who opposed Dreyfus as well as Einstein's relativity. Social history, with concealed roots in Marxist thought, has also reinforced ideas or assumptions of continuity in scientific thinking. As a 'cultural practice', science cannot do without authority, collective efforts, and a stable community, as Steven Shapin has argued in his 'social history of truth'.
