My sister is a graduate student in Neuropsychology. As part of her graduate program, she was required to take a programming class; because programming is an important tool that she needs to be able to use to do her research.

Simmilarly, most research in CS will involve using programming as a tool, even if it is not the final product. The problem is that in CS, no one thinks to require the graduate students to take basic programming classes.

in my opinion they don't need to BE programmers but they need to be ABLE to program.

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=398

relevant song by scott aaronson