> This is strongly contradicted by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's evidence. Nearly everyone he talked to (many Nobel Laureates among them) said their greatest achievement was raising a family or something in personal life. I can't claim this generalizes, but I can provide it as a stark counterexample to Hamming's claim.

If this proves anything, it is that self-reporting is dangerously misleading and the answers depend very much on who is asking.