The key issue is that Lisp's minimal uniform syntax has less variation to help with visual pattern matching, which we humans are good at (compared to richer syn

The key issue is that Lisp's minimal uniform syntax has less variation to help with visual pattern matching, which we humans are good at (compared to richer syntax). The meta-programming power of Lisp may be largely due to being homoiconic, although Dylan/Julia etc achieve similar without it. However Lisp's minimal syntax is not a prerequisite for homoiconicity: S-Plus/R has a more conventional syntax while retaining "code is a list" representation.