Alan Turing's Suicide in Doubt

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

by wr1472 • 14 years ago

208 66 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

That's an extremely horrible story that I previously knew very little about. It was 60 years ago, but it felt a bit mentally violating to read it now (how Turing was treated).

It's worth noting that the claims by Copeland are seemingly just as unsupportable as those he's arguing against. For example this:

"immediately after his conviction had told a friend: "The day of the trial was by no means disagreeable. Whilst in custody with the other criminals, I had a very agreeable sense of irresponsibility, rather like being back at school."

"On the face of it, these are not the expressions of someone ground down by adversity."

It's just as plausible that Turing was lying to his friend about his real state of mind. That's an extraordinarily common thing for people to do, and some do it no matter how dire their current circumstances. Copeland doesn't do a very good job of supporting the notion that it wasn't suicide (and it may well have not been).

epo• 14 years ago

We can't know, we will never know and all speculation is facile and pointless. Your speculation, based on nothing other than a BBC web page doubly so.

adventureful2• 14 years ago

I wasn't speculating either direction about Turing's death, but what I said regarding Copeland's statement was correct.

Judging someone's state of mind by what they project externally is not an accurate approach. Taking a single psych course would inform you of that, so would knowing someone that has committed suicide without the cliche external signals.

andreasvc• 14 years ago

By the same token we should give up on things like archaeology as well. We will never know for certain, but we can reason that given the evidence we do have, such and such is a likely scenario.

gruseom7• 14 years ago

Not all speculation is pointless. There's a point in knowing that the evidence for Turing's suicide is inconclusive.

A recent biography of Van Gogh challenges the evidence for his suicide too.

jberryman• 14 years ago

Right, if you look at what Tyler Clementi was saying on and offline before he committed suicide you'll see the same sort of thing. (not trying to draw too many comparisons here)

Someone• 14 years ago

Which of Copeland's claims do you dispute? I assume those statements about what he said at varous times a d about his chemical experiments are true. From there, I find Copeland's conclusion perfectly reasonable:

"The thing is to tell the truth in so far as we know it, and not to speculate."

"In a way we have in modern times been recreating the narrative of Turing's life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there."*

"The exact circumstances of Turing's death will probably always be unclear," Prof Copeland concludes."

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ScottBurson• 14 years ago

It's just as plausible that Turing was lying to his friend about his real state of mind

It's also plausible that he wasn't lying, but actually felt more cheerful having made the decision to end his life. This is also not unheard of.

Still, Copeland makes an interesting case. I'm inclined to agree -- the fact that Turing had cyanide in his house, ostensibly for purposes other than suicide, makes accident seem at least equally plausible.

It's tragic either way, of course.

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defrost2• 14 years ago

He was also a classic example of a British eccentric inventor, at one point he fashioned his own mercury delay lines for digital storage.

I have no trouble at all with the notion that he (foolishly) had a small unventilated room with cyanide, mercury, bismuth, probably a small kiln furnace for metal casting, floor to ceiling racks of odds and ends and semi regular small explosions and benchtop melt downs.

It's a lifestyle that's accidentally killed more than one person and it could very well have claimed Turing.

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eternalban2• 14 years ago

> It's tragic either way, of course.

True. But the point being it may have been criminal, or perhaps not even remotely related to his sexuality.

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samwillis• 14 years ago

I think the point made at the end of the article is what we should take away from this. We will never know the truth about how he died and it does him an injustice to speculate as the coroner at the time did. We should instead celebrate his life and achievements, not let his death and persecution define him.

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raganwald• 14 years ago

Fortunately we do celebrate his achievements. The Turing Award is handed out for contribution to the field, not for overcoming persecution.

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rmc4• 14 years ago

at the inquest, the coroner, Mr JAK Ferns declared: "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." What he meant by "of this type" is unclear.

Oh please, we know exactly what the coroner meant by "of this type". He meant homosexuals. He (and many many other people in the medial and government at the time) thought homosexuality was a mental illness and very unnatural affliction.

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geuis• 14 years ago

The man was a genius. He was largely responsible for creating the foundations of modern society in many ways, in his work with computation, cryptology, AI, and other fields.

"Of this type" means that he was an out of the box thinker and hard to predict. It in no ways should be understood as you are stating.

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schrijver2• 14 years ago

How can you be so sure geuis? It’s well possible the coroner wasn’t aware of Turing’s genius at all.

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defrost2• 14 years ago

Smart guy, yes, very smart indeed, but to describe him as "largely responsible" is a disservice to men like William Thomas Tutte, Tommy Flowers and a number of other contemporary collegues who contributed as much but with less fanfare.

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gaius4• 14 years ago

Then you don't understand the British ruling class of the time - everyone of them, judges, civil servants, politicians, army officers, would have had homosexual experiences at boarding school, not necessarily consentingly, but they were perfectly well used to homosexuals.

The problem as far as the establishment was concerned was that Turing had access to all the nation's secrets and he was inviting anyone home he fancied... That he was gay was just a pretext for what happened next.

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spinchange• 14 years ago

"Alan and I were left with “the Wards”—always we referred to them as “the Wards.” We were the wards and they were our guardians but no matter—this was to be the centre of our existence for many years and our home from home. I believe it was here, perhaps in the first four or five years at the Wards, perhaps even in the first two, that Alan became destined for a homosexual. Has anyone mentioned it until now?"

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/23/alan-turing...

I was previously unaware that this was such a common phenomena.

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rmc4• 14 years ago

Oh yes, for a long time in the UK, the percentage of males whose first sexual experience was with another male was sort 30%. It dropped when the gay rights movement took off.

Although they were aware of homosexuality, and likely to have practised it, don't pretend they were OK with homosexuality. They viewed it as something that one should grow out of. That there was something unnatural about grown men doing it. That it wasn't possible to have a real same-sex relationship. That it was a unseemly, unnatural thing.

If Turing had been inviting random women to his house he fancied (which would have happened to lots of other men in his position), it would not have been nearly as much of a problem.

Turing didn't turn off his homosexuality and settle down in a nice fake loveless marriage (with a woman) and keep up appearances.

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easp2• 14 years ago

Yes, because heterosexuals in such positions never had affairs, or if they did, it was never with the wrong sort of woman.

Whether or not the ruling class was "used to homosexuals," their attitudes towards them were far from universally accepting or enlightened.

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toyg2• 14 years ago

"A man of his type" probably just meant "a mad scientist". The stereotype was as strong as ever at the time (thanks to Einstein and the nuclear-science culture of secrecy), and Turing fit it to a T: he dealt with concepts the average coroner couldn't even start to comprehend (advanced crypto, information theory, Frankenstein-style machinery full of valves and levers, experimental chemistry), he was a loner, socially awkward geek, who somehow didn't really like to hide his homosexual side like a proper Englishman would do (homosexual experiences were much more common at the type for the ruling class, due to boarding schools).

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Produce• 14 years ago

This is stomach turing. Sorry, had to inject a little humor because this is actually making me sad. The way he was treated by the authorities (seriously, chemical castration!?) is beyond hellish. I'm ashamed that I live in the country which perpetrated this. And it all happened just a lifetime ago.

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vladd2• 14 years ago

Today most US states deny the right of marrying the person you love.

Which makes me wondering why are we feeling so strongly, as a human race, to regulate what other people are able to do (even in cases where it doesn't affect us) and to inflict punishment on those that break the social norms.

It's probably a combination of evolutionary traits, fear of unknown, desire for protection of self at the expense of others, and the desire to be in groups with similar characteristics of our own. Only lately it appears that we embraced 'diversity', where we respect the right of others to be, behave and think differently than our own ways, without feeling threatened by them or feeling the need to prosecute them.

Why is this happening only now and how can we make sure that we don't revert to the old ways? Part of it is history, I think - we're more aware now of the mistakes of the past, the world-wide wars, and the poverty effects of oppressive regimes. We also improved agriculture and technology to the point where most of us can have a decent living without stealing from others, conducting wars with our neighbors or by practicing slavery / communism. It might very well be the case of the famous saying, "you cannot do democracy on an empty stomach".

I only hope the trend will accelerate and that we'll be able to reap up the benefits of mutual respect and decency for human rights sooner rather than later. And never return to the past.

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adimitrov• 14 years ago

Well, chemical castration is still used to "combat" paedophilia. I'm pretty sure the Ancient Greeks and Romans would find that repulsive.

Now, I'm a child of my time, so I think homosexuality is OK, and I think paedophilia is a crime. But were I a child of, say, the thirties or forties, where in my youth fascist regimes burned homosexuals by the thousands, what would I say? Would I have the empathy, or the courage to understand and express against the strong sentiment of society my understanding for the gay cause?

I also want to note that "chemical castration" is a harsh term, and I find the treatment to be an interesting, indeed even acceptable, alternative to just straight incarceration. In the face of a force society considers dangerous to itself, it is a good thing that we can use medication to combat it — and we still do when applicable, for example also with psychopaths and other severe mental illnesses. That homosexuality was viewed as dangerous to society back then is certainly sad, even terrible. But how will people fifty years hence look onto our debates about whether to allow people to marry? How will they look onto our treatment of socially not accepted sexual deviants. Social ousting, sex offenders list, incarceration, the eroding of free speech in the name of reducing just the chances of sexually "deviant" activity?

People back then did what they did because they thought it right. It is not what they did that we should find repulsive, because their methods are by and large the same we employ today when faced with similar value judgements. It is the why. Homosexuality is not a mental illness. We have finally learned this, and I hope it won't take more than the dying out of the current generation of politicians for society at large to accept this.

(I'm sorry to have drawn a parallel between homosexuality and paedophilia — I'm not meaning to suggest any similarity between the two on a biological or indeed conceptual level. I wanted to explain my view that the concept of homosexuality in the society of the 50s was indeed a similar one to the concept of paedophilia today.)

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slowpoke3• 14 years ago

>Now, I'm a child of my time, so I think homosexuality is OK, and I think paedophilia is a crime.

Except paedophilia isn't a crime, child abuse (and rape) is. Assering a sexual preference (which paedophilia boils down to) is criminal is steering into thoughtcrime teritory. You can think it's wrong all you want, but that doesn't make it a crime.

It is, therefore, equally as abhorrent and repulsive to use these methods against paedophiles as it was using them against homosexuals in the 50s. It is, indeed, abhorrent and repulsive to ever use them on a human being, regardless of the reason.

But how will people fifty years hence look onto our debates about whether to allow people to marry? How will they look onto our treatment of socially not accepted sexual deviants. Social ousting, sex offenders list, incarceration, the eroding of free speech in the name of reducing just the chances of sexually "deviant" activity?

They will be equally as disgusted at this nonsense as we are right now at the heinous things perpetrated in the 50s. In fact, I am disgusted at it right now.

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scalable2• 14 years ago

"Homosexuality is not a mental illness. We have finally learned this, ..."

This is an opinion, not a fact. We have changed our minds, not learned anything.

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JonnieCache• 14 years ago

I recommend listening to the audio clip that accompanies the article as it includes the fact, omitted from the text, that while the police were able to smell cyanide in his lab days after his death, 50% of men are genetically unable to smell it at all. This is surely crucial.

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gwern• 14 years ago

> This is surely crucial.

And worth investigating, surely? If it is genetic, then this may be testable via his relatives, or more intrusively, his remains.

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antihero• 14 years ago

This is pretty distasteful on his birthday.

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klmr• 14 years ago

While all this raises some interesting questions, the assertion that he had born a hormonal treatment robbing him of his sexual desires, and playing havoc with his body’s hormone balance “with good humour” seems ludicrous. In fact, the treatment was more likely a serious burden, both physically and emotionally. And if Turing acted cheerful in spite of that this suggests he was hiding his real emotions under a mask.

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teeja• 14 years ago

Hear hear. It's a dismissive and flippant assertion of the kind made by a people who deservedly feel guilty. The "chemical castration" was an option created by people who were clearly willing to do worse. No doubt the behavior of the Cambridge Five created a climate justifying suspicion by "the type so inclined".

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antidoh• 14 years ago

A lot of people are surprised to learn of Turing's treatment.

If you're at all interested in this, you might think about reading biographies and other material on Turing and other computer scientists. Or the history of computer science. Or the history of science.

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jdietrich• 14 years ago

See also: The death of Gareth Williams, a brilliant young mathematician and cryptographer who died in mysterious circumstances in 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams

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eternalban2• 14 years ago

> "mysterious circumstances"

"His decomposing naked remains were found in a red North Face bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom."

The mystery being how he managed to lock the bag from the inside.

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toyg2• 14 years ago

It's now accepted that he didn't. In truth, such hypothesis was clearly ludicrous from the start, to anyone with half a brain; it was kept dangling just to distract the public, trying to paint it as "just another homo killed by his own weird fetish".

Either this was a cold-war style assassination, or the guy brought home a stranger too many; we'll likely never know the truth about it anyway.

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notatoad• 14 years ago

I don't know if you have any information not in the Wikipedia article but I don't see anything there suggesting suicide was ever considered as a possibility. All is see is the police and coroner saying he was murdered but they don't know who did it.

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gruseom7• 14 years ago

"Indeed, the police never tested the apple for the presence of cyanide."

That is dumbfounding. It alone calls the verdict into question.

Edit: according to http://sciencemuseumdiscovery.com/blogs/insight/the-spirit-o..., autopsy found that Turing's stomach contained four ounces of cyanide solution and the apple had nothing to do with it.

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DanBC• 14 years ago

That's not mentioned by the article, yet it seems important.

4 ounces is 110 ml - a reasonably bug gulp. It's not the kind of dose that you'd get from accidentally licking your finger, or absent mindedly eating an apple that had rested in a splash of cyanide.

The article is right about modern inquests needing clear evidence before they record a verdict of suicide. But that was even more so in the past, when suicide was a crime, and much more likely to be seen as sinful.

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jrockway2• 14 years ago

when suicide was a crime

Punishable by death, ironically.

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SagelyGuru• 14 years ago

Ask yourself in what circumstances might a coroner come to a hurried 'suicide' conclusion in the absence of any supporting evidence? Instead of evidence engage in character assassination of 'a man of this type' having 'unpredictable mental processes'? If the coroner did not find any suicide evidence it can mean only one thing: there wasn't any. Furthermore, why would he claim that Turing ate a poisoned apple when it was not poisoned?

Why would Turing's visiting Norwegian friend disappear without trace?

Turing had become a convicted criminal and overnight he turned into a security nightmare: someone with detailed knowledge of secrets but without the security clearance.

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WalterSear• 14 years ago

He was convicted two years before he died.

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unabridged• 14 years ago

Could it be possible he was assassinated by the Russians (or I guess even by UK/US if they felt he might end up in the hands of the Russians)? I'm assuming by this time he was well known in intelligence circles for his work during WW2, this is someone that could possibly turn the tide in a war, he was a very valuable/dangerous man.

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alanh• 14 years ago

> Although famed for his cerebral powers, Turing had also always shown an experimental bent, …

Nit-picky of me, but experimentation is hardly counter to cerebral activity, but rather a reflection of it.

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Alan Turing's Suicide in Doubt

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