Phillip Tobias on Charles Darwin, genetics, and Apartheid

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Phillip Tobias on Charles Darwin, genetics, and Apartheid

Dec 2009

Speakers: Jack Klaff, Phillip V Tobias

Phillip Tobias talks to Jack Klaff about his predecessor, Raymond Arthur Dart, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, his personal experience of disease, and standing against Apartheid in South Africa.

He begins by discussing the 2009 bicentenary of Darwin's birth, his study of Darwin's illness after his HMS Beagle voyage, and the next 47 years of Darwin's afflicted life. He then explains how the death of his sister, from diabetes at the age of 21, was the impetus for his career in genetics.

Tobias discusses his opposition to Apartheid, how his love of genetics influenced his views, and the ramifications of his fight against racism. He talks of being part of a multi-racial student body at pre-apartheid Witswatersrand University, and how it led him to launch the first anti-apartheid campaign in 1948.

Tobias finishes by briefly discussing his interests and his writing, including an early publication, The Meaning of Race (1972), and Fossil Man (1974), the book for which he is most famous.