I expected more from "Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein" by Mario Livio.
I had expected more "accidental" discoveries that went on to be big breakthroughs, but that would be another book.
This one focuses on the myopia of the famous scientists. Einstein launching quantum mechanics, then distancing himself from the theory later was not a particular theme, though Einstein adding the "cosmological constant" to his relativity equations to account for a seeming static universe, thus missing the chance to discover the expanding universe that made Hubble famous.
Darwin was an interesting case as he seemed to not have the strongest handle on the mechanics necessary to underlie the evolution theory of natural selection.
All in all, I like the book, but was not particularly surprised that the "big shots" didn't master all domains, and all showed some natural stickiness to their own theories and ideas.
Science is not about geniuses as much as it is a discipline that keeps the most empirically relevant theories alive in order to be investigated and built upon. This may be the take-home Livio intended - you are a genius for uncovering science - science actually exists whether discovered by fluke or by hard work - genius not required, and not necessarily transferable to other domains.
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