It's because LISP has a "great filter" for high IQs. Programming has many such filters: Understanding pointers / references separates the python/script kiddie

It's because LISP has a "great filter" for high IQs. Programming has many such filters: Understanding pointers / references separates the python/script kiddies from the "real" C programmers and understanding von neumann architecture. Recursion separates the programming-is-a-job with the beginnings of algorithmic understanding of computation. LISP is heavy recursion, non-infix notation, lambda calculus, and other concepts that are simply too much for a garden variety programmer.