{"id":321,"date":"2009-09-13T18:17:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-13T22:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/?p=321"},"modified":"2015-02-08T21:41:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T02:41:33","slug":"britain-apologizes-for-treatment-of-alan-turing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2009\/09\/13\/britain-apologizes-for-treatment-of-alan-turing\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain apologizes for treatment of Alan Turing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Alan<\/a><\/dt>\n
Image by Whimsical Chris<\/a> via Flickr<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized on behalf of the British government<\/a> for the appalling treatment of Alan Turing, who was obliged to undergo chemical castration for the crime of being gay. Prime Minister Brown’s statement in the Telegraph<\/a> follows an online petition drive<\/a> that enlisted over 30,000 British citizens and residents, and a follow-on global petition<\/a> with over 10,000 signatories worldwide.<\/p>\n

Much has been made in the discussions surrounding the petition efforts and in the Prime Minister’s statement of Turing’s code-breaking efforts at Bletchley Park<\/a>, which directly contributed to the allied victory in World War II. Less mentioned, but also central to his legacy, are Turing’s seminal contributions to computer science. It is no exaggeration to say that Alan Turing was the progenitor of computer science, in his brief career providing building the foundation of theory<\/a>, hardware<\/a>, systems<\/a>, artificial intelligence<\/a>, even computational biology<\/a>. His death at 42 as a result of the British government’s misguided “therapy” constitutes one of the great intellectual tragedies of the twentieth century. I commend Prime Minister Brown for his prompt and complete apology.<\/p>\n

\"Reblog<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image by Whimsical Chris via Flickr Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized on behalf of the British government for the appalling treatment of Alan Turing, who was obliged to undergo chemical castration for the crime of being gay. Prime Minister Brown’s statement in the Telegraph follows an online petition drive that enlisted over 30,000 British […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13256,380],"tags":[62112],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alan-turing","category-computer-science","tag-alan-turing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pLfN-5b","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2209,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2014\/11\/30\/the-turing-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":0},"title":"The Turing moment","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Sunday, November 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2026less histrionic\u2026 Ed Stoppard as Alan Turing in Codebreaker We seem to be at the \u201cTuring moment\u201d, what with Benedict Cumberbatch, erstwhile Sherlock Holmes, now starring as a Hollywood Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. The release culminates a series of Turing-related events over the last few years. The centennial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1610,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2013\/01\/13\/aaron-swartzs-legacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":1},"title":"Aaron Swartz’s legacy","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Sunday, January 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Government zealotry in prosecuting brilliant people is a repeating theme. It gave rise to one of the great intellectual tragedies of the 20th century, the death of Alan Turing after his appalling treatment by the British government. Sadly, we have just been presented with another case. Aaron Swartz committed suicide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2271,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2015\/05\/07\/in-support-of-behavioral-tests-of-intelligence\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":2},"title":"In support of behavioral tests of intelligence","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Thursday, May 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2026\u201cblockhead\u201d argument\u2026 \"Blockhead by Paul McCarthy @ Tate Modern\" image from flickr user Matt Hobbs. Used by permission. Alan Turing proposed what is the best known criterion for attributing intelligence, the capacity for thinking, to a computer. We call it the Turing Test, and it involves comparing the computer\u2019s verbal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2218,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2015\/02\/18\/the-two-guildford-mathematicians\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":3},"title":"The two Guildford mathematicians","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Wednesday, February 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2026the huge ledger\u2026 Still from Codebreaker showing Turing's checkout of three Carroll books. The charming town of Guildford, 40 minutes southwest of London on South West Trains, is associated with two famous British logician-mathematicians. Alan Turing (on whom I seem to perseverate) spent time there after 1927, when his parents\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1481,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/06\/16\/talmud-and-the-turing-test\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":4},"title":"Talmud and the Turing Test","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Saturday, June 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"...the Golem... Image of the statue of the Golem of Prague at the entrance to the Jewish Quarter of Prague by flickr user D_P_R. Used by permission (CC-BY 2.0). Alan Turing, the patron saint of computer science, was born 100 years ago this week (June 23). I\u2019ll be attending the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2295,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2015\/08\/03\/becoming-tin-men\/","url_meta":{"origin":321,"position":5},"title":"Becoming tin men","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Monday, August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From the 2015 introduction to the 1965 novel The Tin Men by Michael Frayn: \"I hadn't in those days heard of the Turing Test\u2014Alan Turing's proposal that a computer could be said to think if its conversational powers were shown to be indistinguishable from a human being's\u2014so I didn't realise\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alan Turing"","block_context":{"text":"Alan Turing","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/alan-turing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/2236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}