Finding Geniuses in a Counterfactual Universe

Imagine a universe where the accomplishments of someone is not measured against their fellows, but rather against the counterfactual of how likely others were to stumble upon something equally profound were they investigating a different problem. In other words if they separated the skill and ability question from the normative question. It’s interesting to speculate whether this would truly be in favour of a completely different group of people, and whether having this lens is useful in trying to distinguish between skill, ability and luck.