POLL: Do you believe that Alan Turing was autistic?

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It's a crying shame how they treated Alan Turing after all he did.

One good thing that Benedict Cumberbatch has done is to insist on Turing's humanity. I do understand the resistance; the urge to define every nerdy person as autistic is often a tactic to define great minds as "not really human". Then people can happily go on feeling superior.

As I wrote the OP, I was originally interested in the reasons others might have to consider that Turing wasn't autistic (other than his lack of a diagnosis, of course). So, if I was wrong to advance too soon to a conclusion of autism, what evidence did I fail to consider in his lack of autism?

There's no harm in speculation.

There's only harm if you go too far with it--that you believe your hypothesis cannot be disputed, and that anything running counter to it is wrong.

Saying this: I believe it is plausible that Mr. Turing was somewhere on the Spectrum, most likely on the Asperger's end of it.

I wouldn't go in front of a jury, though, and say that Mr. Turing was "definitely autistic."

Your OP was long because you wanted to present evidence (anecdotal, admittedly) from various sources, which is what one does when one is compiling a research paper.

People on WP tend to want a "research paper" level of proof when one presents an hypothesis--thus, the need for the long OP.

Frankly, it's impossible to present anything other than anecdotal evidence in the absence of any actual clinical diagnosis of autism (which was not an entity, in its present form, until Kanner's article came out when Turing was far into his adulthood). People weren't usually assessed for autism anywhere until after the end of World War 2. And people were very rarely assessed AS ADULTS until at least 1994, when the DSM IV came out.

A "retrospective diagnosis" is okay, to me, if it is not presented as a conclusive diagnosis. Rather, it is presented as an item of speculation, of subjective inquiry.

I saw the film, read the biography it was based on, and have read many accounts from people who knew Alan Turing. His brother (who was NT) probably had the best seat to really know what his sibling was like:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-nort ... ring-geeks

My own view is that Alan Turing was definitely on a particular branch of the Asperger's Syndrome tree, no doubt at all. I see it as a tree with many differently shaped branches. AT was a profound exemplar, a brilliant leaf on the genius branch, from my perspective.

Tony Attwood considers AT to have been on the spectrum too. (How can two such great minds be wrong!! lol )

I just wanted to collect all the evidence into one description. While Turing has been diagnosed retrospectively, of course, I was suprised that, apart from the diagnoses, most references were scant and lacking much description. He deserves a little more care in his biographical references, for and against the idea of autism.

I see the Spectrum as the result of the interaction between a prism and a light source.

I like trees (a lot).

The Asperger's Syndrome tree has:

roots that extend into the deep history of the earth and human evolution - common ground with all humanity
a trunk which connects the different branches - common ground with one another and each subgroup
branches which are different shapes and sizes - the subgroups of AS
leaves which represent each individual AS person

It's an evergreen and it's very hardy because it must survive great adversity in the climate in which it lives. It produces some rare and beautiful fruits from time to time.

Perhaps the great and ancient New Zealand Kauri, the most famous of which is named after Tane Mahuta who is "The God of the Forest".