To anyone who questions Turing singular contribution, not just to computer science, but to technological civilization in general I would point to one pithy fact

To anyone who questions Turing singular contribution, not just to computer science, but to technological civilization in general I would point to one pithy fact: Alan Turing invented software. Computing machines existed before Turing, but they were all purpose-built for a single task. Turing was the first to describe a machine whose behavior could be changed to do anything you wished without modifying the hardware. The details of the architecture of the machines we use to perform computations today differ in detail from Turing's original design, but not in their essence, and not in their fundamental capabilities. The list of people who had as much practical positive impact on the world as Alan Turing can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.