I'm not convinced that's true, as the depth and quality of rubygems are inferior to the depth and quality of eggs available in python. Find me e.g. a "gem install scipy" equivalent for Ruby.
However - "easy_uninstall scipy" REALLY needs to work!
Rubygems is a separate system from deb/rpm, but works roughly the same way. Typically it doesn't do binary packaging the way they do it, though, and if native (non-ruby) code is required it is compiled during the install.