The argument that this article makes is somewhat muddled, but if I'm understanding correctly: child prodigies don't end up advancing their fields to the extent

The argument that this article makes is somewhat muddled, but if I'm understanding correctly: child prodigies don't end up advancing their fields to the extent that their early talent might suggest because by and large they're not original/creative, which is because they learned at an early age to conform to well-defined standards of success instead of pushing the envelope. So we get "excellent sheep," or masters of using ordinary methods who still receive nice but ordinary results. But 0.5% of the Westinghouse pool winning Nobels is still far better than the population average. What this article tells me is something that seems pretty obvious: that raw ability is correlated to being recognized by society for acts of genius, but so are other things, including both the "thinking out of the box"-ness that the author trumpets as well as entirely extrinsic and random factors (ie the Nobel committee likes you, your style of work or area of focus happens to align with or be amplified by a prevailing intellectual trend, etc). Prodigies don't always succeed in pushing the enelope because it's vanishingly unlikely for anyone to do so; they still do a sight better at it than most.