Please excuse my quoting from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
So using 18th century people to illustrate that hereditary factors were not dominant pre-IR is a bit strange.
The Wikipedia summary isn't wrong, it is just misleading. The inventions and innovations that lead to the industrial revolution were founded in the late 18C, but the real transformation was much later (although it did happen, comparatively, quickly)
It is a bit like saying that the 'Internet era' is from the 1950's, because that is when the integrated circuit was created
Steam engines were invented many times during and before the IR. What allowed the IR to happen was more likely coal, I think.