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Comment by computerjunkie | Hacker News Reader

>>> seeing as the entire field is built on the work of a gay man.

That's a rather inaccurate, cringe worthy and generic statement. If your saying only one person contributed to the field of computers in 2014, that's sad.

We tend to glorify individuals in the eyes of media and forget [1]others who contributed to where we are today in technology.

[1] http://www.computerhope.com/people/ - list of people who have contributed to computers.

Edit: Thanks to oneplusone, I realised that he was speaking about Alan Turing. But why base a field on only one person regardless of sexuality. Why is sexuality the issue in the first place?

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But why base a field on only one person>

Because Alan Turing is the father of computer science. Basically everything that came after depended crucially on his work.

George Boole, Charles Babbage, John von Neumann, Grace Hopper

- To name a few great contributors. Yes Alan Turing is considered the father of computer science but with out the knowledge of others before him (and even during his time) we could be living in a different world right now.

Even the late, great Isaac Newton said - [1]"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_g...

To put it a different way: Turing was necessary, but not sufficient. We needed him, and the entire field is built on his work. But his is not the only contribution; indeed, many others needed to also contribute to be sufficient for the field we know today.

In this light, it seems the original comment is correct.

Turing made great contributions, and had a great mind. But we did not need him, or any other particular individual.

What do you think would have happened if Turing had never been born?

Perhaps we would never have had a single individual who contributed as much, all at once, as Turing did... but the sum total of his contributions WOULD have been made by other people, eventually.

> Turing made great contributions, and had a great mind. But we did not need him, or any other particular individual. > What do you think would have happened if Turing had never been born?

And yet, he was born, and he did contribute, and we remember him for that, and we remember what his peers did to him in response. And we learn a lesson from that.

Why is this controversial?

Why is what controversial? Your preceding sentence? It isn't. Why do you think its controversial? And why do you think its related to my sentences?

The only thing which might be controversial (but really shouldn't be) is the observation that people make foolish and illogical claims when they let their passions drive them to hyperbole. For example, claiming that computer science NEEDED Turing. That without Turing, we would not have computer science.

Its simple. Worship him all you want for what he actually did, but please don't fall prey to the belief that "without so-and-so, X would NEVER have been developed". Or "without so-and-so, we would still be doing Y".

Nonsense. Some other person or group of people would have made those contributions.

This has nothing to do with how horribly he was treated. And if you want to highlight the sickness of the world by pointing out the genius of one of the victims of our diseased culture, that's cool, but we can do that without going off into a fantasy land where some individual was uniquely, in all the world, uniquely capable of making the contributions they made.

Well, that statement is generally true, but Turing appeared in a very sensitive moment of history (WWII) and was critical for a very special task (The decryption of the Enigma Machine). Computer science would probably be fine without him, but maybe history would have beeen quite different, so we needed him.

Of course, Turing was one of many. But he was one, and that's enough to make the homophobes run for the hills.

Many seem to think that he wrote that in the letter just to annoy Robert Hooke, who was rather short in height.

He is referring to Alan Turing I believe.

Thank you for the clarification.

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