Turing Archive Director Questions Alan Turing Suicide Report 121
That Alan Turing committed suicide is widely accepted as fact. Now, an anonymous reader writes, "According to Professor Jack Copeland, director of the The Turing Archive for the History of Computing, 'The coroner [in Turing's case] didn't really investigate the evidence at all, he just jumped to the conclusion that he committed suicide. He seems to have been very biased from the statements in newspapers at the time.' Copeland further said that medical evidence suggested Turing died from inhaling cyanide rather than drinking or ingesting it."
All right! (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot's finally gotten to the point where its stories are driven by the Google Doodle!
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It would of never happened in commander tacho's day ...
Re:All right! (Score:5, Funny)
You're right, back then the stories would be driven by last week's Google Doodle.
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Compared to the way things have been going, that's actually a big step up.
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Slashdot's finally gotten to the point where its stories are driven by the Google Doodle!
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/05/21/1555205/a-playable-pac-man-on-google-doodle [slashdot.org]
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/05/24/2228226/google-pac-man-cost-48m-person-hours [slashdot.org]
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/06/10/1527254/google-guitar-doodle-song-gallery [slashdot.org]
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/08/1212244/google-logo-changes-again-hinting-rt-search [slashdot.org]
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/05/11/21/0541246/inside-googles-london-complex [slashdot.org]
Perfect timing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only been a mere 58 years. Now is the time to look into this.
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It's only been a mere 58 years. Now is the time to look into this.
No brainer for Dr. Brennan. She solved JFK case, kind of warming up for Turing.
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So, there is a Kennedy/Turing connection? I knew it! Those Kennedys would put it in anything that couldn't run faster than them.
More likely an accident (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note that most seem to be construing this news as a cue to believe that Turing may have been murdered (by the British government, naturally), when in reality, Prof Jack Copeland, the foremost Turing scholar, and Turing's own mother thought it to be a careless accident rather than a suicide, with Copeland saying "the evidence should be taken at face value - that an accidental death is certainly consistent with all the currently known circumstances." [bbc.co.uk] The truth is that the initial inquest was so sloppy we will never know for certain, so those who are apt to believe in government conspiracies will no doubt believe he was assassinated (after he was already subject to humiliating chemical castration), even as the premier Turing expert believes it was more likely an accident.
Prepare for it to get even muddier... (Score:1)
Be aware: There are likely to be some heavy politics attached to this one. There's a little LGBT politi-blurb making the rounds in Facebook now that claims Turing committed suicide because he was discovered to be gay. Leaving the politics aside, he died a couple of years after the (grossly wrong) conviction/oestrogen injections, but it hasn't stopped certain political groups from using his history to further their own agenda.
Re:Prepare for it to get even muddier... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if he didn't kill himself that very day, it isn't a plausible cause?
Re:Prepare for it to get even muddier... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the thing - no one knows for certain (no diary entries, notes, conversations with friends, etc) that would indicate either way, and yet it's being pushed as direct causation.
Plausible? Maybe. Possible? Certainly. Probable? Unknown.
OTOH, I don't like how quickly and easily correlation instantly becomes causation and gets pressed into an ideological cause... no matter who does it, or why they do it.
Re:Prepare for it to get even muddier... (Score:4, Insightful)
That his personal and professional life was destroyed by bigotry due to his homosexuality is well established and uncontroversial. If he did commit suicide, then the existence of a causal link is nearly inevitable. The part that hasn't been well established is whether he did, in fact, commit suicide.
(Correlation can imply causation if there is no other viable cause and the absence of a cause is unlikely. He could have suffered a devastating mental illness that made him suicidal, but there is no evidence of this, whereas the discrimination is well documented.)
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He died a couple of years after the (grossly wrong) conviction/oestrogen injections,
I think I should clarify, "grossly wrong" applies to morality not to a miscarriage of justice. The law of the time was applied and there is no indication that there were any legal errors or that procedures were not followed.
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As do I. Just today I've had someone tell me that the mere usage of the words "cunt" and "bitch" as insults is degrading to women.
Who said that? Some Girl's Blouse of a Big Jessie I'm sure.
Yeah, but (Score:2)
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Isn't Copeland one of those hypercomputation idiots? I wonder how he got his tenure.
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Why by the British government? They forced Turing to try a somewhat experimental treatment for a condition that wasn't really any of their business, and the worst case assumption is this caused a suicidal depression. They still were apparently thinking the treatment was for Turing's own good. Yes, people can do a lot of harm that way, but it doesn't mean they will necessarily come to hate or even murder the person. Every case where somebody misguidedly forces a person to do something for his own good is no
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Widely reported as fact ... (Score:3)
His suicide was widely reported as fact. I have serious doubts that anyone who looked into the life of Turing actually believed that his suicide was a fact. (Opinions seemed to vary from conspiracy theories focussed on a government assassination, to it was probably suicide but the investigation was so botched up that we'll never know.)
Gay = "potential commie spy" back then... (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the 1950s, anyone who was gay was considered as being vulnerable to blackmail by the "filthy reds", who could threaten to expose them unless the subject agreed to work undercover for the commies.
They even applied this standard to the relatively few people who were OPENLY gay, even though there was no basis for exposing somebody who was already out of the closet.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/the-seven-highly-productive-habits-of-alan-turing/ [arstechnica.com]
Would the 1933 letter "Anti-War Council. "Politically rather communist. Its programme is principally to organize strikes amongst munitions and chemical workers when government intends to go to war."" point to a group of UK gov interest?
Years later after ww2 would members be of interest again?
A man packed with the real history of ww2 travelling around Europe chatting
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Two homosexual friends working at NSA went to Moscow in the 60s
I hope they put them in different hotels, or how could they have kept their minds on their work?
Re:Widely reported as fact ... (Score:5, Informative)
the funny thing is that the assessment is that he would have been harassed relatively less in the US (he could have gotten a position there after his visit in Princeton).
Apparently being gay was not considered as suspicious as being a communist back then
Well, the only thing you can conclude from the whole sad story is that bigots are idiots. They took away Turing's security clearance because they were afraid his sexual orientation made him vulnerable to blackmail, even though by this point he was a *known* homosexual. The biggest potential threat to national security would have been Turing going to work for a foreign power because he could no longer work in Britain.
America was no better.In 1949 rocket scientists Qian Xuesen applied to become a naturalized US citizen, when reviewing his application noticed, "hey, this guy is Chinese!" He was imprisoned for a year and deported to China because being Chinese he was considered a security risk. He also happened to be the most brilliant young rocket scientist of his generation; so his deportation resulted in the worst possible outcome. He didn't give US rocketry secrets to China, he gave China its own rocketry *program*. Quian became the father of the Chinese ballistic missile program and later space program. He was deeply involved with education, instrumental to training the engineers and scientists who are running China's space program today.
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Somewhere in the bowels of the archives of the US Government is the paperwork regarding Qian Xuesen's attempt at naturalization, his enprisonment, and his deportment. On those papers will be the names and signatures of the US Government bureaucrats who decided to do this. I wonder if any of them are still alive?
I would like to confront them with the results of their ignorant stupidity.
Well, no, what I *actually* would like to do is throw them and their supervisors into a large bonfire...
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The guy isn't claiming any sort of conspiracy theory:
He said medical evidence suggested Turing died from inhaling cyanide rather than drinking or ingesting it. He said police reported a strong smell of cyanide coming from Turing's lab, where he used it in amateur experiments.
suicide with cyanide? (Score:5, Informative)
As a chemist who has worked with cyanide, I question whether he would have chosen this method to end his own life. Cyanide poisoning is extremely unpleasant and chemists who work with it generally are aware of this. Cyanide gas is very easy to produce from cyanide solutions, just a matter of adjusting or failing to adjust the pH. I have given myself low level cyanide poisoning without being aware of it until the symptoms appeared hours later, and many others have been saved by having the antidote at hand when they realized they had been exposed.
The gas could easily have been produced in his laboratory by his own accident or neglect, or by someone else.
In my opinion Turing's death by cyanide poisoning was not an intentional suicide.
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well, it just wouldn't sound good if you phrase Turings death as a darwin award. so maybe people just don't want to dig it up.
Re:suicide with cyanide? (Score:4, Informative)
Darwin awards aren't given to people whose exposure to danger is consciously undertaken, and most certainly not those for whom the risk was for the betterment of society- for instance, coal mine workers, soldiers, infectious agent researchers, and of course, scientists.
http://www.darwinawards.com/rules/rules2.html [darwinawards.com]
Anyway, I do find myself hoping that Alan Turing's death was accidental instead of deliberate.
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I think taking reckless and unnecessary risks might qualify a scientist for a Darwin award. The BBC article says that he was in the habit of identifying chemicals by tasting them. If he died by tasting cyanide, that might qualify for a Darwin award.
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That's not what a Darwin Award is.
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all exclusively gay men get a Darwin award; their genes will never propogate
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Re:suicide with cyanide? (Score:4, Insightful)
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so now we're getting serious about my stupid joke? ok, let's have at it. that's your definition, not Darwin's. Behaviour that leads to no offspring is the issue
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you have much to learn of the Way of the Troll, young slash-jedi
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('Two atom
Gay uncle hypothesis (Score:1)
Raise your hand if you have an uncle who left you a nice sum of money because he wasn't married and/or doted on you with financial gifts beyond the usual proportions. How does this not enhance the survival of common genes? At the very least, the presence of non-procreating members in a tribe isn't harmful and might have conveyed some advantages over tribes with higher procreation percentages. There's also a grandmother theory that runs along similar lines. Post-menopausal women don't get the "Darwin awa
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My uncle didn't leave me a damn thing, but went around fucking a lot of women. He's more successful by Darwin's critieria than your nice Uncle BooFoo
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that is quite uncommon, and also falls outsinde MY definition of "exclusively gay", that is heterosexual reproduction. When a baby crawls out of a man's ass after 9 months, then give me a call and I'll retract what I said.
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post a video of the syringing and I"ll bet someone wanks to it. put it on wikipedia and watch the complaints of porn on the pedia.
anyway, what you speak of is still rather rare because it costs money (often requires lawyers because progeny and prosperity have links in our civilization). I know quite a few L & G couples, none have children. On the other hand, there are married men who "get it on the down-low", but now that's into the "not exclusively gay" realm.
Amazing how many feminist columnists tak
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This discussion is drifting towards more and more topics, not a bad thing imo, but I'm going to address them as best I can.
anyway, what you speak of is still rather rare because it costs money (often requires lawyers because progeny and prosperity have links in our civilization)
Well, that's why there's such a push for gay marriage. If the lesbians are married, and they've acquired the sperm from a sperm bank with appropriate paperwork, they won't need a lawyer for anything, just a session with a medical professional who can carry out the "turkey-basting" all official-like. Likewise, married gay couples can adopt if they are not rich enough to afford surrogates
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so what, changes nothing about what I said
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In the case of Turing, if his death was indeed by accidental cyanide poisoning within a home laboratory as a result of careless lab procedure, then it is indeed qualified as Darwin Award worthy.
No, it doesn't, not automatically. For that to work he'd have to have died just an hour after giving a big speech on cyanide gas safety.
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it can be worded as such.
he was playing around with cyanide for what can be said as no good reason while he wasn't qualified to handle it.
WITH FUCKING CYANIDE. yes, it could be easily worded as darwin award.
if he did it on purpose, it's another matter, but if it was an accident on his behalf, of course that would count as a darwin award.
(offtopic my ass..)
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well, it just wouldn't sound good if you phrase Turings death as a darwin award. so maybe people just don't want to dig it up.
Surely he excluded himself by being homosexual.
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I vote accident myself, but with lack of true evidence i can see why they might say it was intentional.
Re:suicide with cyanide? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was not aware that at the moment I was poisoned. I was certainly aware later when the symptoms appeared, although I did not immediately connect them to cyanide poisoning. I had a searing headache, muscle contractions, and lethargy, not the full range of symptoms which include convulsions, cardiac arrest, and asphyxiation perceived even when breathing. Coma will occur - this is I suppose the end result of almost any fatal poisoning. It is not clear to me when unconsciousness occurs in this process. it may be dose-dependant. It would be instructive to hear from those who have been rescued from the full throes of symptoms. The only person I personally know who rescued himself from a high dose of cyanide by immediate ingestion of antidote suffered only minor symptoms.
Curiously, that person (who orally ingested a splash of concentrated cyanide in a plating plant) took an oral antidote that does not seem to be mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on cyanide poisoning. It may have been thiosulphate, I don't remember clearly off the top of my head. Keep your mouth closed in a plating plant. I was once obliged to prepare a sulphate solution for myself in a laboratory after accidently ingesting concentrated barium. Worst case of beer farts I ever had, no other symptoms. If you work with poisonous substances you should be prepared.
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htf does one accidently ingest concentrated barium? Did you think it was skittles?
Re:suicide with cyanide? (Score:5, Interesting)
I once "accidentally ingested" a liquid in a factory. A moderately pressurised line blew, and squirted the liquid in a line over my face, including my mouth.
Fortunately, this was a food factory, and the liquid was food-grade alcohol (used as a preservative, roughly vodka strength) mixed with natural flavouring (cherry, I think). The line manager was standing opposite me, and asked me to swallow it -- had I spit it out they would have had to stop production and clean the area.
Hopefully places with actually dangerous chemicals have better equipment, but accidents do happen.
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If it's true then the romantic notion of him being bullied into poisoned-apple suicide by his government for homosex is false.
If I had to pick a preferred scenario, I'd go for accidental death.
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I have given myself low level cyanide poisoning without being aware of it until the symptoms appeared hours later [...]
Will you please describe the effects you experienced? Did you panic when you realized what was occurring? Did you have access to an antidote, and if so, was it required for recovery at the dose you received?
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Gas filled balloons perhaps? It sounds like a plot for a movie.
http://archive.org/details/Danger_on_the_Air_movie [archive.org]
(free view or DL, from 1938)
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Turing wasn't a chemist.
More than a suicide (Score:1)
He synthesized cyanide himself, so of course his apartment smelled of it. The idea that a gay man with drug-induced depression could wish to eat the enchanted apple to sleep a hundred years before a prince wakes him up in a more tolerant world seems pretty credible to me.
Re:More than a suicide (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're suggesting that one of the greatest polymaths since Eratosthenes had the the mentality of a 5 year old girl, in part because he was gay?
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And yes, as you point out, he was a polymath and a genius, someone who probably felt he was trapped in a retarded world and who could envision the future.
So, in a moment of depres
Way better article at BBC (Score:5, Informative)
The beeb has an article [bbc.co.uk] that addresses the apple thing--he often ate an apple before bedtime, so the fact that a half-eaten apple was found on his night stand wasn't unusual at all, and the apple was never tested for cyanide.
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BTW, apple seeds contain cyanide compound which is why they should not be eaten. But I guess, that it you have to eat a lot of seeds and chew them, before it your life is in danger.
At this point, who knows... (Score:2)
You might as well do a criminal investigation on Julius Caesar.
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Come now, we know Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus, Cassius Casca et Al. We even have Shakespeare's eyewitness testimony.
Back in the days when they had IDE hard drives.
Oh very good. IDEs of March hard drives, you're talking...
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... Hyperbole is not an argument.
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Fine... if everyone wants to go digging up Turning have fun... Enjoy your weekend with the corpse.
Just like Lincoln (Score:1)
Who knew Alan Turing was a vampire hunter?
No one (Score:1)
No one that understands cyanide would choose that as a suicide method.
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Meh ignore that I was thinking of strychnine.
Copeland said (Score:2)
And we all know that inhaling cyanide (as opposed to eating or drinking it) actually has therapeutic effects for depressed men who have been arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime of loving someone of their own gender and then subjected to chemical castration. It couldn't have been suicide.
Torchwood (Score:1)
Allen was a known associate of Torchwood from 1951 through 1956. He was reported dead on 8Jun54, but you can't believe everything you read. He began travelling with The Doctor 7May52. Allan lives! end transmission.
Let's grab some shovels and find out... (Score:1)
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Why should his sexual or criminal proclivities, real or imagined, have bearing on people caring how he died?
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Um, [...]
"Um," indeed. Presumably, you're struggling to construct a sound argument.
[...] because he was a pederast, [...]
Failing to produce a sound argument or a single citation, you instead resort to circular reasoning.
[...] how fucking stupid are you?
Apparently not as fucking stupid as you'd like me to be, since I'm unpersuaded by your tautology and ad hominem attack.
Your failure to present even one reputable source citation further undermines not just your claim, but your credibility.