I think the objection isn&#x27;t that those people didn&#x27;t make huge and transformative contributions to the field.<p>Rather, it is the tone set by the use of the worshippy word &quot;genius&quot;, which has a murky, and totally relative definition, and the phrase &quot;unusual cognitive ability&quot;, which implies that their abilities uniquely set these people apart from others who we don&#x27;t worship in the same way.<p>Uncounted numbers people have fully understood, and often expanded beyond, the discoveries of Von Neumann, Shannon, Turing etc., since their times, and even more probably had the innate ability to do so, but no access.<p>Thousands of others have demonstrated the scrappy self-startedness of Wozniak and Torvalds, but without the societal setting and geographic luck that allowed those individuals to succeed.<p>Given the significant role that one&#x27;s environment plays in one&#x27;s success,  these people as individuals aren&#x27;t in themselves unusual.   What&#x27;s unusual is that they were people with the right characteristics, in the right circumstances, and the right support systems.<p>Basically, extraordinary intellect isn&#x27;t as unusual or consequential as that sentence from the article implies.