Einstein is also a really bad example; there is Hendrik Lorentz for special relativity and David Hilbert for general relativity wo would've probably produced th

Einstein is also a really bad example; there is Hendrik Lorentz for special relativity and David Hilbert for general relativity wo would've probably produced the exact same results maybe some years later had Einstein never existed. In fact, I can not think of a single (!!) scientist that progressed his field in a truly revolutionary manner; every great thinker that comes to mind had contemporaries that could have substituted for them with only minor delays in progress. I fully agree with the author that geniuses exist, it's just that they all were/are replaceable.