This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

31st January 2009

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The first time I encountered Phillip Tobias, I was standing behind him in a queue at the entrance to a formal function. When the lady at the door, ticking off a guest list, asked for his name, the world-famous scientist seemed reluctant to present his credentials: “It’s, er, Professor Tobias,” he mumbled.

It’s this modest demeanour, combined with an affability and a raconteur’s skill when relating the accumulated anecdotes of his eighty-odd years, that makes Prof Tobias such an engaging conversationalist. This is, of course, not to mention his prestige as an archaeologist, anatomist, anthropologist, geneticist, fossil-hunter, medical doctor ... the list of Tobias’s professional capacities is a long one; he is that rare thing in the super-specialised environment of contemporary scholarship, a true “Renaissance Man”.

I recently had the opportunity to visit him in his office on the University of the Witwatersrand’s Medical School campus (where Tobias has been based, more or less continuously, since he was a student in the 1940s). He spends a lot of his time nowadays receiving guests – the day before I was there, he had entertained a delegation from the Royal Embassy of Thailand – and admits to having to be careful not to over-exert his voice. But, after a cup of tea, Tobias was ready to dedicate a few more hours to giving yet another visitor an insight into his life and work.

We were there to discuss Tobias in Conversation: Genes, Fossils and Anthropology, a new book published by Wits University Press. In it, Goran Štrkalj and Jane Dugard have collated the transcripts of a series of “interviews” held over six years into a single text comprised of Tobias’s responses – covering topics both personal and professional, scientific and socio-political – with occasional explanatory notes provided by the editors.

Tobias is, indeed, simultaneously a very easy and very difficult subject to interview precisely because he provides such comprehensive answers to any question posed. Such is the wealth of the man’s scientific and historical knowledge, the scope of his experience, the breadth of his circle of acquaintances, the extent of his international travel, that he can digress any number of times – without, it must be said, ever losing his auditor’s interest or attention – before returning to the subject at hand.

For those who have not had the privilege of talking to the great man, Tobias in Conversation is the next best thing. It has what he describes as a “chatty” tone, a result of Štrkalj and Dugard’s editorial approach: “They didn’t change much, and where there was a bit of repetition from one conversation to another (a year later, three years later) they didn’t attempt to wipe out any overlaps as one would do in a properly ‘written’ book.”

In this way, Tobias in Conversation complements his 2005 volume of memoirs, Into the Past – both these autobiographical books fuse chronological and thematic treatments, resulting in a cyclical effect. Tobias’s school years in Durban and Bloemfontein, for instance, or his years as a medical student, are discussed but not exhausted in the early pages – he revisits their significance in subsequent chapters, as they pertain to his various adult pursuits.

“Chronology doesn’t count for very much,” he jokes, “In fact, it can be a bit of a bore really! You know, on page 1, ‘I was born on a windy Sunday afternoon, in so-and-so at such-and-such a time; my mother had a trouble-free gestation’, etc.”

What Tobias, ever the scientist and lover of long words, describes as his “ontogenesis” (this discourse is common in his self-assessments – elsewhere in the book he comments on his “somatotype” as a limiting factor in his success on the sportsfield) is of interest not simply because he is a public figure and because many readers might be curious about his life story. One could go so far as to suggest that the characters and events influencing Tobias were significant because, without them, we would probably have a more limited understanding of the development of our own species. Would we, for instance, know as much about our Homo habilis forebears (which Tobias described and named – along with Louis Leakey and John Napier – then had to defend for sixteen years until the international palaeo-anthropological community was persuaded), if Tobias had become, say, a lawyer or an engineer? What other knowledge about hominid fossils and human evolution would be lost?

“It constantly amazes me,” he tells me, “When I cogitate over the seeds that were sown, when I was very young or a schoolboy, which later blossomed into my life’s callings and primary interests. I’m not unique in this, I know, but many people ignore the roots of their thinking; they would rather trace it to other scientists’ theories.”

Indirect causes – the consequences of Tobias’s parents divorcing, or the fact that he grew up during the Second World War – combined with more explicit stimuli to his intellectual curiosity. His sister’s death, at the age of 15 from complications relating to diabetes, made him anxious to understand genes and inheritance; hours spent at the Durban Museum of Natural History spurred his desire to learn more about archaeology and species diversity.

But, Tobias cautions, one mustn’t be “too deterministic” in interpreting a life story: “One must allow for accidental encounters, or being immersed in certain environments – such as, in my case, studying in the remarkable Anatomy Department at Wits under Raymond Dart. I had the great good fortune to have the impact upon me of some remarkable teachers, both at school and at university.”

Having benefited from Dart’s mentorship, Tobias went on to become an inspiration to countless young scientists. A popular lecturer, he was Head of Anatomy at Wits from 1959-1990, presiding during that period over numerous innovations in research and teaching methods – while remaining insistent that, in medical training, there is no substitute for time spent on cadavers (together with Maurice Arnold, he produced the seminal textbook Man’s Anatomy: A Study in Dissection, the sub-title punning on its intended use as a practical guide in the dissecting hall).

Sitting behind his desk, Tobias often seems to be looking into the middle-distance, searching the past, as he reflects on over half a century of relationships with mentors, peers and students – “Friends of the heart and of the mind,” as he calls them. But just as often he is staring at the portrait photographs adorning his office walls, referring to names and faces from “a fraternity of colleagues who have made life much more interesting than it would otherwise have been, providing continuous re-stimulation of ideas and energy.”

Of course, it was not easy to sustain his interaction with scholars across the globe during the long isolation of apartheid; Tobias in Conversation records examples of the extreme measures he occasionally had to take simply to be able to attend conferences or use research facilities. Even though he supported international embargoes, Tobias was frustrated by the academic boycott: “I felt that isolating South African scholars would only result in our universities running down and down – and I couldn’t bear the thought of bequeathing a series of run-down universities to our post-apartheid successors.”

Both inside and outside the academy, Tobias was a prominent opponent of apartheid policies. He was elected president of NUSAS (the National Union of South African Students) in 1948, the same year that the National Party came to power; the campaign that he launched in opposition to enforced segregation at universities and the restriction of academic freedom was, in fact, the first official anti-apartheid movement.

In later years, he became known as “the conscience of the Senate” for his firm stance on non-racialism; he was one of the key figures in the “Biko doctors” affair (taking the Medical and Dental Council of SA to court for failing to punish the doctors who had neglected their responsibilities towards Steve Biko during his dying days); and he was heavily involved in the protracted negotiations with French authorities over the repatriation of Sarah Baartman’s remains from the Musee de l’Homme in Paris.

As a scholar, Tobias demonstrated his conviction that – even if scientists are often restricted by political circumstances, and scientific data can be manipulated for ideological ends – ultimately “science can overcome ideology”. Among the more than 1,000 academic papers and 33 books he has written are many that addressed South Africa’s racial oppression: challenging the government’s racial categories on genetic grounds, showing that “Race Classification legislation was scientifically invalid”; disproving eugenic theories that had claimed cultural differences resulted from chromosomal inequalities; verifying, through his study of anatomical types over time, that apartheid was having an anomalous effect on the physical stature of black South Africans.

His research also makes him affirm, “When people around the world glibly ask, ‘What has Africa ever given to the world?’, a simple answer: ‘Humanity’. My study of fossils from Olduvai, Sterkfontein and Makapansgat led me to proclaim confidently that human beings, human culture, first appeared in Africa. This is a profound political, and not just an academic statement.”

Other profundities continue to perplex Tobias. “I’ve always had a sense of the numinous among human beings and in our world; a consciousness of something beyond the immediate here and now,” and this awareness has made him a convincing proponent of the possibilities for reconciling religion and science. “Typically, it’s theology that seems to fly in the face of science, rather than religious faith per se,” he observes. “Truth is one of the uniting factors of constructive and creative human thought. The quest for truth is what the scientist pins his faith on; but all the great religions also revere the concept of truth. Perhaps we should make more of this common ground. I’m not going to claim that I’ve got it figured out yet – I’m only in my eighty-fourth year – give me more time!”

First and foremost, however, Prof Tobias wanted to find out about the cricket score (South Africa was playing Australia); and, agreeing on that priority, we ended the conversation.