Investigative Pathways: Patterns and Stages in the Careers of Experimental Scientists By Frederic Lawrence Holmes New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (2004) 256 pp. $35.00What are preconditions for scientific creativity? Can we regard changes in scientific knowledge as occurring as sudden shifts, as a series of revolutionary moments, or is the main feature of scientific development better described as a process of continuity? What is a scientific discovery? Do so-called Eureka moments exist—experiences in which scientists have flashes of new insights that reveal the essence of a new theory? Or should we think of a new discovery as the outcome of a long-term daily routine of scientific experimentation?These questions that lead to the central problems addressed by historians of science are raised and discussed by Frederic Holmes in his latest book. Investigative Pathways is a book that both analyzes biographical patterns of several outstanding experimental scientists from the 18th to the 20th century and also provides a stimulating discussion of the main epistemic approaches taken up by history of science of the last decades.With the term “investigative pathway,” Holmes introduces a concept that lies at the center of his historical and epistemological approach: “The investigative pathway may be, at its most basic level, only the scientist version of the metaphor of life as a journey” (p. xviii). Written shortly before his death, Holmes' last book is itself a reflection of his own 45-year-long journey as a historian of science. Thus, for all readers who do not know Holmes' important books on Claude Bernard and Animal Chemistry ([1974] Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); on Lavoisier and the Chemistry of Life ([1985] Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press); his detailed reconstruction of the work of biochemist Hans Krebs on the intermediary metabolism (Hans Krebs: The Formation of a Scientific Life, 1900-1933. [1991] Vol. I, Oxford University Press; Architect of Intermediary Metabolism, 1933-1937. [1933] Vol. II, Oxford University Press); or, more recently, his exhaustive analysis of the research of three molecular biologists, Seymour Benzer, Matthew Meselson, and Frank Stahl (Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA. [2001] New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), this book offers a dense introduction into what Jed Buchwald has called in his afterword the “Holmsian pattern” (p. 193): the reader will gain insight into the work of one of the preeminent scholars in the recent history of science, whose own research life was devoted to understanding the complexity of how novelty emerges in experimental science, whose books have set standards, and whose methodological approach has been shaping the direction of the history of science decisively during the last decades.Science is a collective as well as an individual endeavor. Holmes emphasizes that the metaphor of “investigative pathways” provides a framework to understand the development of scientific research, taking into account this double character of the scientific enterprise. For exploring the scientific endeavor, from the level of broad investigative streams formed by the collective work of scientists engaged in a specific discipline, up to the finer level of the daily research activities of an individual scientist, Holmes differentiates three analytical scales of reconstructing the investigative pathways of experimental scientists: (1) a broad scale that examines different phases over the lifetime of a career, such as apprenticeship, mastery, distinction, and maturity; (2) a middle scale that deals with episodes of a shorter time span within such a career; and (3) a fine scale that tries to reconstruct the day-to-day research operations in laboratories. Whereas the first scale draws on the research biographies within their broader historical and disciplinary context, the last scale deals with the relationship of scientific practice and theory formation. It concerns the relationship of thought and operation within the daily laboratory life of scientists. According to Holmes, at this level of fine resolution, we find not only the starting point for the historical analysis, but also the most challenging adventure for historians of science: to reconstruct with as much detail as possible the series of experimentations and the stepwise generation of scientific concepts from scientists' notebooks, laboratory records, professional correspondence, and drafts of research papers.By analyzing the patterns in the career of certain well-known experimental scientists, Holmes explores comprehensively how scientific investigations have been done. The reader learns a lot from Holmes' intimate and extraordinary knowledge about Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, the 18th century founder of modern chemistry; Claude Bernard, his mentor Magendie, and 19th century physiology; and Hans Krebs and the way he investigated the citric acid cycle in the 1930s, an investigation that soon became the model on which the general conception of metabolic cycles was built. Holmes also draws a dense picture of the work of Matthew Meselson and Frank Stahl, whose 1957 experiment on the semiconservative replication of DNA became a classic reference point in molecular biology, and of Seymour Benzer's research on bacteriophage during the 1950s, which introduced the mapping method of classical genetics into molecular biology. Although these case studies range over three centuries, Holmes argues that one can find general patterns. One of these patterns, maybe the most forceful one, concerns the importance of mentorship. Each of these scientists was involved in powerful personal networks, exemplified either by the relation of a mentor-apprenticeship as in the case of Magendie and Bernard, or the influence of two or more mentors as in the case of 20th century molecular biologists. In order for these scientists to achieve a distinct place within their respective research communities, each of them had to find the way through these influences to the status of independence. Holmes argues against common and widespread images of science, like the heroic “genius scientist.” He clearly demonstrates that the picture of the scientist as an outsider who makes important contributions by entering a new field is simply wrong. Instead, Holmes stresses that in science, as in the arts, it is steady work at the discipline that allows the scientist to make advancements in the field in which he or she has developed expertise. Another common image of science concerns the vision of a single decisive experiment that leads to a major scientific breakthrough. Holmes shows how this vision is misleading. Instead, his detailed case studies demonstrate that it is mostly through a long series of experiments that new knowledge slowly emerges.Investigative Pathways is, above all, a book about continuities. Holmes wants to convince the reader that the metaphor of an “investigative pathway” is not only a concept for describing a scientific career. Rather, on a deeper level the concept implies that there exist certain research strategies that guide successful scientists, or as Holmes put it: “The pathway changes direction, but does not lose continuity” (p. xvii). The unpredictable, the unforeseen, or chance events are, of course, essential parts of the scientific adventure, but Holmes emphasizes that the unpredictability of research is not without limits. The unexpected occurs within certain parameters. The experimental setting has its own dynamics, that can generate new directions, but the experimental system does not in the end have a life of its own. It is embedded in a long-term goal, a path, where each step is guided by those taken previously and by uncertain intimations about what lies ahead. Thus, experimental systems are part of a broader scientific story—and in this story, it is the scientist who is the principal agent, and it is his or her decisions that create successful investigative pathways.The emphasis Holmes put on the aspect of continuity is a critical departure from a Kuhnian perspective that described scientific changes as sudden Gestalt switches, an idea that dominated 1970s approaches to the history of science. In addition, with the emphasis Holmes has put on the scientist as principle agent, he is also arguing against more recent movements in the history of science based on sociological approaches and ethnomethodological studies of daily laboratory work. Critical of the reduced focus on experimental practice in recent science studies, Holmes encourages younger historians of science to rediscover what he thinks lies at the heart of the historical enterprise, namely to reach a deep historical understanding of the complexity of processes of scientific investigation. With this emphasis, the book will initiate a debate that will extend beyond the field of history of science. Both scientists as well as historians will find this book exceedingly stimulating.