I have a social science degree from UC Berkeley and am a self-taught programmer / Entrepreneur. I currently work as a Senior Software Developer. The best programmers I have worked with over 7 years have not been comp sci / engineering majors, while most of the mediocre programmers I have worked with have a degree in CS or MIS - totally anecdotal I know, but thats been my experience.
To a certain extent, what you study in college and what you eventually pursue as a career are generally not the same. Anyone with more than a few years in the field will understand that. Experience trumps a degree after 2-3 out in the field and you can set your own course.
Feel free to disagree, just let me know how many years of work experience you have.
I highly suspect your observations are a result of cognitive bias. You are much more likely to remember the degree of a programmer if it's something incongruous, so it's the philosophy degrees that stand out in a sea of CS degrees.
Also, a programmer's having a CS degree is much less likely to come up. You note his degree--which is similar to so many others--and don't think of it again, unless, perhaps his performance is poor. Poor performance doesn't match what you expect--or, more likely, what you think others expect--of a CS major, so you remember that it was a CS major that wasn't particularly good.
While people with degrees/diplomas may not be good at programming, they at least have something tangible to show potential employers, while people without one need to be more ... creative.
It reminds me on the focus on grades - ALONE - in my country. An absolutely atrocious metric, but a metric the institutions can understand, at least.
After college I started doing some web development on the side, which really took off. I spent like 100's of late nights hacking and learning. I think there is really no other way to get good or learn things but through hard work. You can either be forced to do it (like via a degree or taking classes etc) or just force yourself on your own. I started doing simple thing than got excited to do more and more complex features, apps, systems etc. Now I do lots of System Admin and DBA, product management etc. I know many people that have followed the same path: studied X but now do Y.
"they at least have something tangible to show potential employers"
Maybe, depends on the organization. I worked for a startup where we passed over a lot of CS resume's b/c they had no tangible experience, no interesting side project, nothing they were hacking on, nothing that stood out, including people with Ivy league CS degrees.
To a certain extent, what you study in college and what you eventually pursue as a career are generally not the same. Anyone with more than a few years in the field will understand that. Experience trumps a degree after 2-3 out in the field and you can set your own course.
Feel free to disagree, just let me know how many years of work experience you have.