A hiker on a mountain might as well imagine that at the end of their journey they will step off onto the moon. But it's just a mirage. As us humans have externalized more and more of our understanding of the world into books, movies, websites and the like, our methods of plumbing this treasury for just the needed tidbits have developed as well. But it's still just working off that externalized collective understanding. This includes heuristics for combining different facts to produce new ones, sure, but still dependent on brilliant individuals to raise the "island peaks" which ultimately pulls up the level of the collective intelligence as well.