[kazinator]

I feel that this article wastes effort on attacking a bit of a strawman.

In the fields of computing and mathematics, nobody (hopefully) believes bunk like that Turing started computer science or invented the first computer. My reactions to all that were, "what? who thinks that, and why don't they check the Wikipedia?"

If such beliefs are circulating among laypeople, it is good to debunk them. But doing so in this article (especially while failing to acknowledge that they are strictly lay myths that no mathematician or computer scientist believes) detracts its main thesis, which is about the excessive attribution to particular individuals, while others are ignored/forgotten.

Turing is not excessively attributed with anything in our field. He's frequently referenced, mainly because he articulated a concrete model of computation which can be simulated and using which proofs can be made about computability.

I mean, academia doesn't habitually make up lies about who did what, especially if they are not coming from that person or persons. I.e. if you don't misrepresent your work yourself, the field is generally not going to step in and do that for you. Embellishing the exploits and contributions of some eminent persona may be what some careless journalists or bloggers sometimes do, but that's neither here nor there.