I don't mean that in a hostile way, I just mean that the overlap between reality and good ideas is very low almost by necessity? This is why we have science, after all.
In fact, I think the idea that people who stumble on things that work somehow do so because they're smarter or more talented than those who don't is somewhat dangerous. Certainly, bad ideas are bad. But at some point you reach a set of ideas that are all equally probable given existing information, and you're literally at the mercy of luck, almost by definition. Maybe there's some bit of information here or there that can tilt the scales one way or another, and maybe some are better at that than others, or just have access to additional information through experience or resources, but at some point you are just left with the need for raw experimentation.
I think the only way to do this really is through as much information as possible, which is why I think transparency in data is key -- so you can make use of what others have done already as much as possible.
Maybe there's some way of bootstrapping to a sort of meta-modeling? What I mean is, maybe you can develop a model/AI system that learns how to learn and becomes sort of auto-developing, but it seems like we're not quite there yet.