Intuitively it would make sense to me that they both provide advantages to the mind. Certainly, being able to parse dense technical literature is impressive, but the ability to use the imagination and think creatively would probably use different parts of the mind, and I'd think the "best" minds could do both.

Wasn't it said that Einstein kind of came up with the whole idea about relativity based on the imagined idea of "riding" a beam of light or something like that?