Is it possible that you perhaps have an engineering or physics background (or one sympathetic to the same- say mathematics or computer science) and pay more attention to others who are like yourself? Would you make similar statements regarding people from, say art backgrounds who make great contributions in engineering, physics and other sciences-Morse, Hedy Lamarr, Santiago Cajal to name a few? I think it's pretty common for clever people who do well in one field and decide to switch to do well in another, no matter what the two fields are.