雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第1章15:小嬰兒
But equally inscrutable, Natural Wonders conspicuously failed to describe where the first cell in the human process came from, only dropping the elusive hint that 'the egg itself arose by the splitting of still another cell which, of course, was part of the parent's body.' The secret was left for the 'perplexed but serious-minded parent' to explain. Mrs Turing's way of dealing with the thorny topic was, in fact, highly consonant with Brewster's, for John at least was the recipient at Hazelhurst of a special letter starting with the birds and the bees, and ending with instructions 'not to go off the rails'. Presumably Alan was informed in the same way.
還有一件事，《自然奇蹟》也沒說清楚，那就是人的第一塊磚是從哪來的。它只給出了一個讓人不解的暗示，說：「蛋本身也是來自一個細胞的分裂，當然，這是母親身體的一部分。」這個過程的細節，就要留給那些「嚴肅而困惑的父母」來解答了。圖靈夫人在這個棘手的問題上，也像布魯斯特一樣，採取了隱晦的手法。她給在海茲赫斯特的約翰寫了一封信，以鳥和蜜蜂開始，以「不要越軌」結束。可以想見，艾倫應該也是被用同樣的方式教育的。
In other ways, however, Natural Wonders was indeed 'very modern', and certainly no little 'nature book'. It conveyed the idea that there had to be a reason for the way things were, and that the reason came not from God but from science. Long passages explained why little boys liked throwing things and little girls liked babies, and derived from the pattern of the living world the ideal of a Daddy to go out to work at the office and a Mama to stay at home. This picture of respectable American life was rather remote from the training of the sons of Indian civil servants, but more relevant to Alan was a picture of the brain:
但是在另一個方面，《自然奇蹟》是非常現代的，它絕不是一本簡單的自然書。它裏面傳遞了一種思想，那就是任何東西的存在，都是有原因的，而且這種原因源自科學，而非上帝。其中有很長的篇幅，解釋了爲什麼男孩喜歡扔東西，女孩喜歡小嬰兒，爲什麼這個世界的理想模式是父親去辦公室工作，而母親留在家裏。這些美國生活的畫面，對於印度公務員的兒子來說，理解起來存在一定的複雜性，但是這裏有另外一些內容，與艾倫的生活有直接的關係：
Do you see now why you have to go to school five hours a day, and sit on a hard seat studying still harder lessons, when you would much rather sneak off and go in swimming? It is so that you may build up these thinking spots in your brains. … We begin young, while the brain is still growing. With years and years of work and study, we slowly form the thinking spots over our left ears, which we are to use the rest of our days. When we are grown up, we can no more form new thinking places. …
你知不知道，爲什麼在你想去游泳的時候，大人卻非要讓你去上學，在板凳上坐五個小時，學那些討厭的課程？這是因爲，只有這樣，才能讓你的大腦開始形成思維區……這必須趁大腦還在發育時就開始，通過長時間的學習，慢慢形成以後你都要使用的思維區。當我們長大後，我們的大腦就不能再形成新的思維區了……
So even school was justified by science. The old world of divine authority was reduced to a vague allusion in which Brewster, having described evolution, said that 'why it all happens or what it is all for' was precisely 'one of those things that no fellah can find out.' Brewster's living things were unequivocally machines:
這樣一來，連上學的合理性也被科學化了，神權至上的舊世界，現在只剩下了模糊的隱喻。布魯斯特還談到了生物進化，他甚至還認爲，生物就是一種機器：
For, of course, the body is a machine. It is a vastly complex machine, many, many times more complicated than any machine ever made with hands; but still after all a machine. It has been likened to a steam engine. But that was before we knew as much about the way it works as we know now. It really is a gas engine; like the engine of an automobile, a motor boat, or a flying machine.
身體顯然就是一個機器，它非常複雜，比人工製造的機器要複雜許多，但它畢竟還是機器。以前我們不知道它是怎麼工作的，以爲它就像蒸汽發動機。現在我們已經知道了，它確實是個氣體發動機，就像摩托車、摩托船或飛機的發動機一樣。
