"He was fortunate to live at a time (the mid-1600s) when, if you were born to the right parents, nobody told you you needed to specialize."

Or, he could have been just that much smarter than you you, dismissive author.

"At age 11, Pascal had re-derived much of Euclid’s geometry from scratch because his father kept the books from him"

Guessing not in the author's bio

Two things can be true at the same time. Pascal was certainly a prodigy, but he was also largely living off family wealth and could afford to not specialize.