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Date:Mon May 23 19:06:01 1997 
Subject:Re: OOP and The future of POP-11 
From:Jonathan Cunningham 
Volume-ID:970523.02 

In article <5lkq1b$jii@percy.cs.bham.ac.uk>,
AaronSloman@nospam.com (Aaron Sloman See text for reply address wrote:

>jlc@sofluc.demon.co.uk (Jonathan Cunningham) writes:
>
>> Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 00:48:22 +0000
>in response to
>> richardm@cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Matthias), who wrote:
>[RM]
>> >The reason there are not enough c++ programmers is that there are (a) not that
>> >many good programmers full-stop and (b) programming is not taught sufficiently
>> >well.
>
>[JLC]
>> I'm not so sure about (b). It assumes that there are enough people
>> with the innate ability to program well. An ideological assumption,
>> which is currently becoming less fashionable (that everyone has the
>> same potential. Very PC, but patently absurd, if you think about it).
>
>I don't see what is absurd about it. Of course it is far from
>obviously true. On the other hand I believe so much is done in our
>educational system to cripple the intellectual development of the

The point you go on to make may be true, but it doesn't answer the question
of whether there are enough people with the innate ability to program
well. More accurately, whether there are enough people with the innate
potential to program well, suitably taught.

There must be at least as many as the total number of good programmers (I
define "good programmer" as one who can "program well" - not circular,
although I leave both these terms undefined, and rely on our intuitions
as to the actual meaning.)

The question becomes, how many more people, who are not good programmers,
could have been such? I now see that my original statement was ambiguous:
ok it it not, a priori, patently absurd that there are enough potential
good
programmers: what is patently absurd is the assumption that everyone
has the same potential.

I think this is patently absurd, since it implies a discontinuity between
us
and our ancestors at
some point, and also a discontinuity in potential between us and chimps.
(Unless you think all flatworms are capable of learning relativity theory
:-).
[This is not a rigorous argument, but could be made rigorous.]
But a discontinuity implies a difference of ability between two otherwise
similar organisms, which proves that similar organisms may have different
abilities. We can define "similar" as "differing in no more than n genes",
in
order to make the argument more rigorous, if you like. Choose n to suit
your own preferences.

Since humans are known to differ in many genes, it seems to me absurd
to assume they all have the same innate potential to learn things.

We may be arguing about the meaning of "absurd" here. Absurd does not
imply impossible (as far as I'm concerned). However, I would demand a lot
of supporting evidence before I would accept an assumption which
otherwise seems absurd. (I.e. an "absurd" assumption should
be assumed false, unless contradicted by evidence. If it didn't have the
potential to be contradicted, it wouldn't be an assumption.)

I don't doubt that "nurture" makes a difference: I simply doubt that any
form of teaching designed to maximise the abilities of the taught would
result in everyone ending up with the same abilities.

None of the above is concerned with moral obligations, duties or rights,
nor with equal opportunities etc.

Jonathan