This comparison is misleading, because it is based on a wrong perspective of how research works: In programming, if everyone would "just" be good enough, every

This comparison is misleading, because it is based on a wrong perspective of how research works: In programming, if everyone would "just" be good enough, everyone could the elusive 10x programmer. In research, even if everyone would be the equivalent of the 10x programmer, there is simply often a lot of "boring" work to be done, such as what you dismissed as incredibly incremental contribution, to prepare the foundation for the next breakthrough. That means that "10x researchers" could, for various reasons including luck, end up in the 100th percentile because they have chosen a field that is not yet ready for a breakthrough (think, e.g. ML researchers slogging through the AI winter, wo didn't stick with ML until hardware became fast enough). Being the person making the groundbraking achievements means standing "on the shoulder of giants" as someone said a few centuries ago. I wouldn't be surprised if today there are more "10x researchers" out there than there are breakthroughs waiting to be made.