Should science courses be context-led?

When Michael Faraday wrote A chemical history of a candle  he gave us all an object lesson in how to draw concepts out of a simple, engaging and accessible context. Come to think of it, 'object lessons' were once the recommended way to teach scientific ideas, and not a bad way at that.  

David Waddington's idea, emerging in Salters' advanced chemistry  in the early 1990s, that a chemistry course could be organised around a set of interesting applications, belongs to this long tradition. There is no doubt in my mind that this 'applications-led' approach was a great success in this case. Certainly I find that in looking at the books for the course, I am drawn in and want to