That sounds like BS, but I haven't read the book.
Was Knuth 'endowed from birth' with the motivation to work in computer science? If so, what happened to all of the similarly endowed people from the 1100?
In '20000 Leagues Under the Seas', Ned Land was 'King of the Harpooners', with no equal to his trade. Stubb, from 'Moby Dick' was a gifted whaler. They are of course fictional, but here's a real-life reference, http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40316513?uid=3738984&u... , quoted through Google as:
> Tessuin, a uniquely gifted whaler who was actively sought by competing companies that wanted him to work for them ..
The actual book uses the lines "expert harpooner" and "renowned harpooner" to describe Tessuin.
What are all those people born in land-locked Oklahoma in the last 50 years, who are endowed from birth with competencies in whale harpooning, supposed to do?
Based on the reviews, it appears that Miller believes that some sort of supernatural force is at work to prevent this from happening. If one is willing to believe in supernatural forces that intervene in the natural world, than can't that be used to justify any action in this best of all possible worlds?