One thing that's clear is that there are some underlying traits that manifest in many different domains, such as language skills. A friend I knew was extremely

One thing that's clear is that there are some underlying traits that manifest in many different domains, such as language skills. A friend I knew was extremely good at languages (fluent in 10+), and also excelling at math and programming. Traditionally, these fields are considered different but they are more similar than we give them credit for. All are heavily symbolic, relational and contextual domains. To complicate things more, you can become great at math and programming by having e.g. a visually oriented mind. My friend didn't seem to have much of that though, which suggests you can excel in a domain using different underlying skills or traits. Totally armchairing of course. The in-spirit premise of the proposal (fundamental traits are mostly roll-of-the-dice) is still compatible with your response. Like the author, I've been burnt by assuming that traits overlap way more than the opposite - eg if someone is good at X intellectual thing they're good at Y too. So many times I've gone "how can such a smart person not get this simple thing?".