
Alan Turing's Suicide in Doubt - wr1472
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092
======
rmc
_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.

~~~
gaius
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.

~~~
rmc
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.

~~~
keithpeter
Hodges biography suggests that the attitude of the US security agencies may
have been a factor in identifying gay men as security risks post war.

 _Alan Turing, The Enigma_ , pages 496 onward, several UK men suddenly removed
from secret work in early 50s.

~~~
gaius
The American military has always had a very strange sexuality - on the one
hand, "don't ask don't tell", but on the other, at Abu Ghraib and other
places, the first thing they do as soon as grown-up supervision's back is
turned, is sexually abuse male prisoners, and photograph it and share it. The
norm seems to be, rigidly suppressed latent homosexuality.

------
JonnieCache
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.

~~~
gwern
> 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.

------
samwillis
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.

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

------
gruseom
"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...](http://sciencemuseumdiscovery.com/blogs/insight/the-spirit-of-
alan-turing/), autopsy found that Turing's stomach contained four ounces of
cyanide solution and the apple had nothing to do with it.

~~~
DanBC
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.

~~~
jrockway
_when suicide was a crime_

Punishable by death, ironically.

~~~
gruseom
_Punishable by death, ironically_

Where and when was that?

~~~
spullara
It is suicide, if you successfully commit it, you are dead. Everywhere, for
all time.

~~~
gruseom
Oh I see – I find myself in a lame joke subthread. Must remember to stick to
Emacs with jrockway.

~~~
jrockway
Sorry, I couldn't resist. I understand why suicide is illegal (so the cops can
intervene before you kill yourself), but I still find it amusing to think
about punishing people for killing themselves.

------
Produce
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.

~~~
adimitrov
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.)

~~~
slowpoke
_> 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.

~~~
vladd
> Except paedophilia isn't a crime, child abuse (and rape) is.

The reasoning is similar with the reason why we ban even entry-level drugs:
it's _insurance_ , preventing weak people to become criminals about more
powerful stuff. The line of thought is that it's ok to deny people freedoms
that might lead the poor-minded folks into more damaging behavior.

And be it either:

(1): homosexuals that _might_ escalate to raping other men,

(2): people with weird fetishes that _might_ end up doing child abuse,

(3): or LSD people that _might_ end up as heroin addicts,

we've seen thought the history of time that it's ok to punish otherwise-
acceptable behavior as long as it acts as an insurance in order to prevent
more harmful acts.

For me, (1) and (2) are the most dangerous as they prohibit the thoughts and
sexual desires of human beings just because they might have the potential to
turn into something dangerous. It's a form of punishment just because
statistically there were specific criminals in the past that escalated them
into harmful acts. And as our society progresses, we'll have to decide if it's
ok to do that for the greater good: if it's ok to snoop credit card bills for
fast food purchases in order to charge a higher medical insurance fee each
month. I sure hope that the answer will be no, or at least that nobody will go
to jail just as an insurance for his potential future criminal behavior.

~~~
slowpoke
_> we've seen thought the history of time that it's ok to punish otherwise-
acceptable behavior as long as it acts as an insurance in order to prevent
more harmful acts._

I doubt there's actually any evidence for it. It's not that I don't understand
the rationale behind it, it's that I reject it. Outlawing something merely
because of the potential for abuse/escalation is almost always a slippery
slope argument of the fallacious kind.

------
klmr
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.

~~~
teeja
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".

------
jdietrich
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>

~~~
eternalban
> "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.

~~~
toyg
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.

------
antidoh
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.

------
SagelyGuru
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.

~~~
WalterSear
He was convicted two years before he died.

------
unabridged
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.

------
alanh
> _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.

------
adventureful
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
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.

~~~
gruseom
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.

------
antihero
This is pretty distasteful on his birthday.

