The programming talent myth

Quite. Note that e.g. we did not evolve the ability to do mathematics. We have exactly the same innate abilities for numerical manipulation as a vast swath of the animal kingdom: an exact counting mechanism which can instantly, reliably count up to about four or five, and another mechanism which can estimate magnitudes on an exponential scale. Both of these abilities are highly advantageous, and widespread -- even *honeybees* have them -- but there is nothing more to this ability. It can't count to ten, and it can't do more than roughly estimate the size of any large group of objects with respect to some other such group.

The ability to do mathematics comes not from this innate numerical ability but is a side-effect of a much more specifically human trait, language -- and language almost certainly did *not* evolve to enable us to do mathematics! Our ability to do mathematics is not an adaptation but an exaptation: a co-option of an existing ability into a different domain. (This, too, seems to be something humans do especially well, though it could simply be that we can't tell when other animals are doing similar feats of generalization.)