Is the pen inherently better than the keyboard?

Lifehacker seems to think so. Intuitively this makes sense to me. I'd probably write with a pen most of the time if getting handwriting into the computer were painless and hyper-accurate. On the other hand, intellectually it isn't convincing. Of course you learn symbols and shapes better by drawing them yourself than by finding them on a keyboard. As for the study at the University of Washington, does it prove that the pen is a tool more suited for the human brain or does it merely prove that the keyboard is a more difficult tool to learn? After all, the children may have performed more poorly simply because they were more adept at their age with a pen than with a keyboard. If they had already become touch-typists, would the results still have given the advantage to the pen?