Also just for context. I am reading papers with 7 million students in them; my wife, who is working on programming education, has a current project with more than a thousand students across multiple intro to programming courses. so "more than 500 students" is like, table stakes for these kinds of claims.
Listen. I really do care about this getting better, not yelling on social media.
If you are a tech person with influence and a platform and you struggle to think about the evidence about programming ability, or are trying to update your views on it, if you are struggling with this but can have compassionate and respectful conversation, you can email me. When my calendar allows I will set aside an hour to have a nonjudgmental coffee chat with you, as a psychologist colleague in this space.
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://mastodon.social/users/grimalkina/statuses/115702181322609550 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)