For me, with a STEM background (and, I, suspect for many people here) the science episodes were never the most informative (though I would still learn a great deal about the history of the subject)
I'm not sure whether someone with a background in arts or history would say the same about the other episodes.
For those who want something entirely outside the STEM-heavy HN sphere of interest, there is another great BBC podcast about social science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Allowed
Likewise - I always skip the science episodes and wondered whether there were hordes of historians tutting their way through the other episodes. It feels to me like there are two types of science episodes though - one where it's pure science, and one where it's the history of a particular branch of science. Like you, the second I could generally stick for the historical perspective, but I always wondered why they have the first type on what is ostensibly a programme about history.