I did mostly ignore the central thesis of your post, which is why I quoted the specific part I was replying to.

You say they count as extraordinary, but by what measure? Reading the origins of those languages, they don't strike me as such. Unless you consider them extraordinary because they wrote languages and compilers without having advanced formal education, but then your claim seems rather circular.

I can't really respond to your anecdata without starting a flame war, but suffice it to say that perhaps some people would consider PHP or Perl or JavaScript cogent counter-examples to the point you're trying to make.

Well, no, because the point I'm making is that one can be employed to hack on some of the most used languages and compilers without having a PhD, and these examples strengthen it.

Now, it might be that these languages are poorly built and which is why many non-PhDs can get jobs building them, but that is an explanation, not a rebuttal.

And I'd point out that one doesn't have to be blind to fail to see statistics that aren't there. Would you care to provide them?