Turing centenary

[Haggis_McMutton]

Well, I'm slightly late on this one, but Turing was born 100 years ago (+/- 1 month) :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

His life story goes something like:

• Defined the concepts of algorithm and computability (before computers actually existed). Is considered pretty much the father of computer science (the most prestigious CS award is named after him).
• Devised a number of innovative techniques that helped break the german ciphers during WW2
• Switched to mathematical biology and did more seminal work here, including predictions which would be verified decades later
• Was chemically castrated for being publicly homosexual (i.e. was treated with female hormones). This had as "side-effects" him becoming impotent and growing boobs. 2 years later he commited suicide via cyanide. He was 42

Happy birthday Alan Turing.

[tkr4lf]

Wow, it must have really sucked to be gay back then. Or black, or Mexican, or a woman, or pretty much anything other than a straight white male.

[BigBallinStalin]

The question remains: was the operation a success?

[2dimes]

Duh. He grew boobs.

[BigBallinStalin]

Why would giving him female hormones somehow make him "less gay"?

I understand that psychology 100 years ago was a bit off the deep end, but this doesn't make sense.

[BigBallinStalin]

Seemed fitting:

Click image to enlarge.

[Dukasaur]

Why would giving him female hormones somehow make him "less gay"?

I understand that psychology 100 years ago was a bit off the deep end, but this doesn't make sense.

It was only 50 years ago which makes it even more shocking I suppose.

It wasn't supposed to make him less gay, but less likely to act on his gayness. Testosterone levels were supposed to be the sole determinant of sex drive. (While inaccurate, it's not completely so. Higher levels of testosterone unquestionably do correlate with higher sex drive.) The idea was that if you can interfere with testosterone production you can eliminate the desire for sex, regardless of the underlying tendency.


Incidentally, there are still quite a few people who postulate that his death was murder, not suicide.

[Haggis_McMutton]

What really surprised me is that no one thought it might be a bad idea to inject random chemicals in a guy who, though still in the first half of his scientific career, had already done more than most do in a lifetime.

I mean, the guy's FIRST paper as a grad student was the Turing machine proposal which still is the most well-known way to define computability. Do you really wanna f*ck with the mind of someone like that ...

Did he have no "celebrity" status from his cipher breaking in WW2 ? no political friends ? I know Churchill made some statements about Turing's huge contribution to the war effort at the very least.

[Symmetry]

What really surprised me is that no one thought it might be a bad idea to inject random chemicals in a guy who, though still in the first half of his scientific career, had already done more than most do in a lifetime.

I mean, the guy's FIRST paper as a grad student was the Turing machine proposal which still is the most well-known way to define computability. Do you really wanna f*ck with the mind of someone like that ...

Did he have no "celebrity" status from his cipher breaking in WW2 ? no political friends ? I know Churchill made some statements about Turing's huge contribution to the war effort at the very least.

I know this is a bad analogy, but back in the day homosexuality was considered sexual deviancy essentially equivalent to paedophilia or bestiality on a scale of degeneracy. Still is for some.

He had friends, and even some famous supporters. They didn't stand by him in the face of the moral outrage of the period. You don't have to look too far to see similar attitudes around today.

[2dimes]

I suspect there were a bunch of people that wanted to "fix" him because he was such a well known brilliant person. It would have been one thing to be a gay actor at that time, quite another to be a scientist or something.

[Haggis_McMutton]

Saw something written about how Turing died 59 year ago, to the day, and remembered this thread.

Here's and interesting short article (link)

Alan Turing was a human being of exceptional intelligence — a mathematical genius — and worked as one of the leading code-breakers during World War II. He is also considered to be the "father of modern computing" thanks to his pioneering work in the field of computer science. In 1950, before the term "Artificial Intelligence" had been coined, he posed the question, "Can computers think?" and proposed the Turing Test. His achievements are staggering.

In 1952, he was charged with gross indecency after admitting to a sexual relationship with another man, and as a result was told to choose either imprisonment or chemical castration as punishment. He chose the latter. Alan Turing was found dead on June 8th, 1954, a day after taking his own life. He was aged just 41.

Turing wrote the following letter in 1952 to his friend and fellow mathematician, Norman Routledge, shortly before pleading guilty.

(Source: Alan Turing: The Enigma - The Centenary Edition; Image: Alan Turing, via.)

My dear Norman,

I don't think I really do know much about jobs, except the one I had during the war, and that certainly did not involve any travelling. I think they do take on conscripts. It certainly involved a good deal of hard thinking, but whether you'd be interested I don't know. Philip Hall was in the same racket and on the whole, I should say, he didn't care for it. However I am not at present in a state in which I am able to concentrate well, for reasons explained in the next paragraph.

I've now got myself into the kind of trouble that I have always considered to be quite a possibility for me, though I have usually rated it at about 10:1 against. I shall shortly be pleading guilty to a charge of sexual offences with a young man. The story of how it all came to be found out is a long and fascinating one, which I shall have to make into a short story one day, but haven't the time to tell you now. No doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out.

Glad you enjoyed broadcast. Jefferson certainly was rather disappointing though. I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future.

Turing believes machines think
Turing lies with men
Therefore machines do not think

Yours in distress,

Alan

[AndyDufresne]

Why would giving him female hormones somehow make him "less gay"?

I understand that psychology 100 years ago was a bit off the deep end, but this doesn't make sense.

BBS, here are some fun facts for you. I once took a course on 'Ancient and Medieval Science,' and I am pretty sure I recall a discussion we had about a bunch of dudes blowing smoke inside a woman's uterus (via a bellows of some sort) because the woman was deemed "unclean," and smoke inside the body is a natural cure for such conditions.

On topic, Haggis, have you read "The Most Human Human": http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/books ... stian.html

Brian Christian explains in “The Most Human Human,” his illuminating book about the Turing test. In 2008, a computer program called Elbot came just one vote shy of breaking Turing’s 30 percent silicon ceiling. The occasion was the annual Loebner Prize Competition, at which programs called “chatterbots” or “chatbots” face off against human “confederates” in scrupulous enactments of the imitation game. The winning chatbot is awarded the title “Most Human Computer,” while the confederate who elicits “the greatest number of votes and greatest confidence from the judges” is awarded the title “Most Human Human.”

--Andy

[BigBallinStalin]

Why would giving him female hormones somehow make him "less gay"?

I understand that psychology 100 years ago was a bit off the deep end, but this doesn't make sense.

BBS, here are some fun facts for you. I once took a course on 'Ancient and Medieval Science,' and I am pretty sure I recall a discussion we had about a bunch of dudes blowing smoke inside a woman's uterus (via a bellows of some sort) because the woman was deemed "unclean," and smoke inside the body is a natural cure for such conditions.

Oh but of course. Before I go into battle, I smear the blood of a menstruating women all over my face--to ward off evil spirits and defeat my enemies with such Dark Magic.