Precisely why I'm against intellectual property. We had an industrial revolution without intellectual property but all of a sudden it became indispensable to progress. Which is of course a lie. — Benkei

In many ways it has stifled progress in certain areas. It's interesting that while the 'great man theory' of history has largely been abandoned, the notion of heroic discovery and invention remains a primary pillar of our entrepreneurial system. The long list of multiple discoveries pretty well debunks the idea but I guess the market needs its myths and idols to keep it grinding.

"You do not make a discovery until a background knowledge is built up to a place where it's
almost impossible not to see the new thing, and it often happens that the new step is done
contemporaneously in two different places in the world, independently."
— a physicist Nobel laureate interviewed by Harriet Zuckerman, in Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States, 1977, p. 204.
List of multiple discoveries

Of course it's possible, but he'd have to be very dumb and unlucky. — Agustino

Tiger Woods? How many of the mighty have fallen? It's easy to provide more examples.