I think this misses a major fact which is that many revolutionary scientists were extremely philosophical people and developed new theories by thinking out of t

I think this misses a major fact which is that many revolutionary scientists were extremely philosophical people and developed new theories by thinking out of the box and reimagining the way things work instead of accepting the ideas of their time. There are people who were simply diligent and bright, like Karl Von Frisch, but, for example, Stephen J Gould basically started the entire field of developmental biology through his philosophical exploration of the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.