It's happened before, it could happen again. One barrier is that the ones who did it before are still out there, zipping around in their cars and airplanes.
Yes, VR; and I believe I have two, not just one, guardian angels....
And caging them for medical experiments. There is an article in the current Science News claiming a single mutation 100,000 years ago might have been enough to trip the homonids from being bright apes to being cave painters and tool makers. Some of this kind of speculation is silly, but a big chunk of intelligence and creativity is definitely genetic.