"Why isn't writing software like chess or sport?" ... "There are obviously natural geniuses in our field, why not natural dunces?"
Precisely because 5-standard-deviation-above-average natural talent isn't required for success in our field. There's only one chess champion in the world and a handful of grandmasters, by definition, and those are gonna be the ones with talent and hard work. But to succeed as a programmer requires more work than genetic luck. An average person can probably do it with enough work.
(But I would point out there is, by necessity, a floor of base talent required somewhere. But it isn't necessarily as high as commonly supposed.)
"There's only one chess champion in the world and a handful of grandmasters, by definition, and those are gonna be the ones with talent and hard work."
There are in fact over 1000 grandmasters.[1]
Originally there were just 5, but as you can see, over time the ranks of grandmasters have swelled.
Many in the chess world lament that it's too easy to attain (or even buy) a grandmaster title these days, and that it doesn't mean nearly as much these days as it used to.
In a world of 6 billion people, 1000 is metaphorically a handful, as far as I'm concerned. In the context that we're talking about, there's certainly more than 1000 "good programmers".
Precisely because 5-standard-deviation-above-average natural talent isn't required for success in our field. There's only one chess champion in the world and a handful of grandmasters, by definition, and those are gonna be the ones with talent and hard work. But to succeed as a programmer requires more work than genetic luck. An average person can probably do it with enough work.
(But I would point out there is, by necessity, a floor of base talent required somewhere. But it isn't necessarily as high as commonly supposed.)