Right. In order to "debunk the myth of the 10x programmer", I'd expect to see research that shows that the phenomenon isn't true - not just that research wasn'

Right. In order to "debunk the myth of the 10x programmer", I'd expect to see research that shows that the phenomenon isn't true - not just that research wasn't modern enough or wasn't completely relevant to modern methods of programming. In my experience, there are 10x programmers out there. I've known a couple in my 20 professional years who exceeded that. The fact that there isn't research proving it only tells me that I don't know distribution of that kind of talent, not that it completely doesn't exist. You could say similar things about the notion of "debunking" the exponential cost of defects.