We have to dispense with the silliness of comparing the US with countries a tenth its size. If you want to compare Britain to the US, pick a state of comparable size and do so. Otherwise you’re comparing apples to much larger apples.

I wonder if the analogy might be more like comparing an apple tree evolving in a forest vs breeding varieties of apples on a farm.

Even if you pick a state, science in any single state has still gotten federal funding and had the ability to easily cross-pollinate with other very good researchers across state boarders. The federal funding then gets redirected to areas of success and the flywheel starts.

That's harder on the scale of a small country.

Why? Britain was considered a larger power in the world until around WWII.