{"id":5285,"date":"2009-08-19T00:12:11","date_gmt":"2009-08-19T04:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=5285"},"modified":"2009-08-19T00:12:11","modified_gmt":"2009-08-19T04:12:11","slug":"dawkins-calls-for-an-apology-for-alan-turings-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/dawkins-calls-for-an-apology-for-alan-turings-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Dawkins calls for an apology for Alan Turing\u2019s suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Dawkins is indulging in the fashionable compulsion to apologise. In this case for Alan Turing\u2019s suicide<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Richard Dawkins last night joined the campaign to win an official apology for Alan Turing, the code-breaking genius and father of the modern computer who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for being homosexual.<\/p>\n

Professor Dawkins said that an apology would “send a signal to the world which needs to be sent”, and that Turing would still be alive today if it were not for the repressive, religion-influenced laws which drove him to despair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apologising for something one is not responsible for is all the rage now, possibly because it diverts attention away from the things one is responsible for. Anglicans do it<\/a>, so do politicians<\/a><\/a>. Now Dawkins is eager to jump on the bandwagon. Is this an example of False Apology Syndrome<\/a> \u2013 I\u2019m sorry for your sins?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so. It appears to be yet another Dawkins anti-religion salvo, under the guise of saving us all from \u201crepressive, religion-influenced laws\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

In actual fact, no-one really knows exactly why Turing committed suicide \u2013 or, indeed if it was suicide. Turing died from cyanide poisoning, apparently from a cyanide-laced apple. Some believed it could have been an assassination since Turing\u2019s homosexuality was seen as a security risk. His mother was convinced that it was an accident caused by Turing\u2019s sheer carelessness at storing laboratory chemicals.<\/p>\n

One thing is known: we have no evidence that Alan Turing killed himself because of “repressive, religion-influenced laws”<\/em>. This is not enough to hold back the ostensibly evidence obsessed Dawkins, though, to whom, when it suits him, a lack of real evidence does not stand in the way of yet another mindless jab against religion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Dawkins is indulging in the fashionable compulsion to apologise. In this case for Alan Turing\u2019s suicide: Richard Dawkins last night joined the campaign to win an official apology for Alan Turing, the code-breaking genius and father of the modern … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2049],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-atheism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}