I think you're overlooking the quote I was replying to. The situation the author describes is like this:
Scientist A and Scientist B both produce results X and Y respectively that are exactly equally valuable to the world. However, Scientist A happens to already be well-known for other work. What we observe is that A will get more accolades for X than B gets for Y. Not because X is more valuable, but solely because people assume that since famous scientist A did X, it must be worth more.
Scientist A and Scientist B both produce results X and Y respectively that are exactly equally valuable to the world. However, Scientist A happens to already be well-known for other work. What we observe is that A will get more accolades for X than B gets for Y. Not because X is more valuable, but solely because people assume that since famous scientist A did X, it must be worth more.