> The ‘more to the story’ is possibly just affluence and family stability, which are also culturally embedded.
At a guess I would think these are the more important factors.
Being born into an affluent family gives access to higher likelihood of more varying influences and stimuli from an early age. Children are by their nature curious creatures, so having the possibility to satisfy their curiosity in more avenues should reflect on their later ability to absorb new information in these fields (because they already have an established baseline knowledge).
Family stability probably helps to support curiosity and emotional safety. When failures are treated as positive experiences ("what did we learn from this?"), as opposed to wasted effort, you are more likely to allow yourself to seek more such experiences.
Of course there are outliers. But over generations, I would expect more innovations and brilliant minds to emerge from families who can provide and support their offspring with the environment to flourish in their fields of interest.
At a guess I would think these are the more important factors.
Being born into an affluent family gives access to higher likelihood of more varying influences and stimuli from an early age. Children are by their nature curious creatures, so having the possibility to satisfy their curiosity in more avenues should reflect on their later ability to absorb new information in these fields (because they already have an established baseline knowledge).
Family stability probably helps to support curiosity and emotional safety. When failures are treated as positive experiences ("what did we learn from this?"), as opposed to wasted effort, you are more likely to allow yourself to seek more such experiences.
Of course there are outliers. But over generations, I would expect more innovations and brilliant minds to emerge from families who can provide and support their offspring with the environment to flourish in their fields of interest.