They did exclude both literature and peace from this study. The dataset is only for science (and economics).

Yeah, that was sloppy, sorry. Here’s how they put it:

In a world where access to opportunity is equal and outlier talent is randomly assigned, the average Nobel laureate would have a socioeconomic rank of 50.

You’re right that that’s not the same thing as a normal distribution on this diagram.

I think it’s less about wealth directly as it is about the overly particular academic path. I think there is high heritibility among professors because their kids get a much better idea of how to become a professor, and have a built-in network.

The paper also tracks education rank and parent occupation; income is way more significant than anything else. In fact, the most common parental occupation for Nobel parents is “business owner.” I’m sure the effect you’re talking about isn’t insignificant, but it seems to be dominated by the effect of wealth, at least according to this paper.

It’s the epigraph to the paper itself, to their credit.

I think this is significant for two reasons. First, the size of the effect: I think we’d all have guessed that it would skew pretty heavily toward the top of the income distribution, but the degree to which it is skewed to the very, very top is still pretty staggering. Second, I think there’s still a popular perception–both among the general public and parts of the scientific establishment itself–that science is the ultimate meritocracy: it doesn’t care about who you are or where you come from so long as you’re smart and interested in The Truth. This blows that narrative out of the water, which is a good thing.