Talk:Alan Turing

A very questionable source for a significant claim
The "Career and research" section includes this:

"However, official war historian Harry Hinsley estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives."

The source cited for this is a post on CIX, a precursor to the modern internet forums, that claims to be a transcript of a seminar from 1993 by Sir Harry Hinsley, who aside from being a historian also worked at Bletchley Park. The post appears to have been made in 1996 and cites no sources, it's not official and isn't published by either Hinsley or the university where he held the talk.

This all strikes me as some incredibly strange sourcing and I'm not sure this sentence should be included in the article at all. I believe this source fails WP:RS, which states that web forums are rarely regarded as reliable. In this case there is no way to confirm the authenticity of this post or trace the authors.

The claim itself is extremely questionable, and in the post Hinsley is quoted as later admitting that Germany would probably have been nuked in 1945. But that's not even really relevant since there's no way to verify that this post even is a real transcript. A random Web 1.0 forum post really doesn't feel like a source that holds up to Wikipedia standards.

Also the "saved over 14 million lives" part is not mentioned in the post at all.

Looking at the edit history, it seems the actual source from this claim was a newspaper article by Jack Copeland but it was changed on July 3rd 2021 with the reasoning of "Corrected attribution of reduction of war's length" but without actually changing the claims to match what the new source says. Erika1897 (talk) 13:32, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Image of Turing aged 5
Is this image in the public domain? The caption there reads: "Alan Turing, aged 5, Photo [AMT/K/7/2]. Thanks Martinevans123 (talk) 18:04, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Poor use of quote
"He accepted the option of injections of what was then called stilboestrol (now known as diethylstilbestrol or DES), a synthetic oestrogen; this feminization of his body was continued for the course of one year. The treatment rendered Turing impotent and caused breast tissue to form, fulfilling in the literal sense Turing's prediction that "no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out". Murray was given a conditional discharge."

I think the emboldened quote takes away from the article. It feels too casual and ironic, which I'm not a fan of. This excerpt from Turing's letter would work better if it was used at the beginning of the section discussing Turing's chemical castration, as it depicts his reaction. In that instance, it would be far more relevant. I would also accept this if Andrew Hodges, the author of one of the citations added to this quote, said something to this effect in his book on Turing (though I would still recommend phrasing it differently to show that this is Hodges' own analysis). This isn't the case however, as Hodges shows no signs of interpreting the quote this way. Instead saying:

"The allusion to the traditional syllogism about Socrates, who drank the hemlock, is an extraordinary piece of black humour. (It also stands as a superb example of how Turing himself fused the elements of his life.) The opening of the letter is perhaps equally remarkable in its absurdly off-hand description of six years of crucial wartime work, and in its inexplicable statement that the work had not involved any travelling."

In my opinion, the editor that wrote this part of the article underhandedly inserted their own analysis of the quote, intentionally or not. This is something that I think violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view and general guidelines on quotes.

I apologize if I seem pompous and headstrong, but this part of the article rubbed me the wrong way. I think this quote should probably be included somewhere in the article, as it provides keen insight on Turing's immediate thoughts on his chemical castration, but it should be incorporated better. Pac-Man PHD (talk) 08:38, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I've removed the offending language. I agree that we shouldn't express editorial opinions about prophetic fulfillment without a source that says just that. I trust that resolves the issue. Skyerise (talk) 11:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 February 2024
Please add the category Category:20th-century English LGBT people 170.76.231.175 (talk) 15:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:41, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2024
In the introduction, it is stated that "the evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning", but there is no citation for that. The BBC article listed as the citation for that paragraph only mentions suicide. It should either be removed, or at least have a citation needed tag. Silversquirl (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ The introduction is a summary of the rest of the article which, per MOS:LEADCITE, does not require inline citations unless the claim is likely to be challenged. Since this claim has now been challenged I added a citation from the death section which verifies it. Jamedeus (talk) 02:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)