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Turing petition provokes PM Brown apology

BBC reports this morning:

"PM apology after Turing petition

"Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the "appalling" way World War II
code-breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government
apology to the computer pioneer.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a
sexual relationship with a man.  Two years later he killed himself.  The
campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.  He was
seeking an apology for the way the mathematician was treated after his
conviction.  He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded
a posthumous knighthood.

The campaign was backed by author Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins
and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.  The petition posted on the
Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures.

Mr Brown, writing in the Telegraph newspaper, said: "While Mr Turing was
dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back,
his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the
chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to
him."  He said Mr Turing deserved recognition for his contribution to
humankind.

In the statement he said:  "So on behalf of the British government, and
all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say:
we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

A niece of Mr Turing, Inagh Payne, said that at the time she had no idea
about his contribution to the war effort because he kept his work
"hush-hush".  She was also unaware of his sexuality and his prosecution
as the family "kept mum about that sort of thing".  She said she was
"very grateful" for the apology.  "We realise now that he was gay and we
think he was treated abominably," she said.

Welcoming Mr Brown's move, Peter Tatchell of gay rights group Outrage!
said a similar apology was also due to the estimated 100,000 British men
who suffered similar treatment.  "Singling out Turing just because he is
famous is wrong," he said.

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment"
and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue
to work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

He is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during
WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with
the German Enigma machines.  However, he also made significant
contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and
computing.  In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical
basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called On Computable
Numbers and in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a
machine.  Today it is known as the Turing Test.  After the war he worked
at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he
worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern
computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens
which was unveiled in 2001.

BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm
(C) Copyright acknowledged © BBC 2009

--
paul
beholder, eye of ... perspective, point of ...
http://www.watman.clara.co.uk/horns_of_a_dilemma.html

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