Academy of Science South Africa 2005/6 Annual Report

Programme 4ASSAfProviding evidence based advice to informgovernment policy making and public discourseinsight into these questions can be gained through a synthesis of Edelman’s theory of neural Darwinism, thatis, the principles of Darwinian natural selection applied to neural processes, and Panksepp’s theory of affectiveneuroscience, which addresses the manner in which neurobiologial systems mediate the basic emotions.Professor Ellis is an activist in the best sense of the word, and has over a period of many decades maintained anintense and direct involvement in some of the most pressing social challenges this country has faced, and continuesto face. An unrelenting critic of the old apartheid government, he is a committed Quaker, and much of his socialinvolvement has been under the auspices of the Religious Society of Friends. In 1977, he and three colleagueswrote The Squatter Problem in the Western Cape, a scathing review of the plight of homeless people. In 1979 heco-authored with David Dewar Low Income Housing Policy in South Africa, an analysis of how to transform thedesperate housing situation among blacks in greater Cape Town.In addition George Ellis has used with telling effect his scientific intellect to grapple with problems as diverse asmathematics education and public administration. He was a member of the task group that drafted South Africa’sGreen Paper on Science and Technology in 1995.Professor Ellis has received a host of honours for his many and varied achievements. These include the award byformer President Nelson Mandela of the Star of South Africa, and most recently the award of the National Scienceand Technology Forum for outstanding contributions.Citation: “Professor Thomas Hamilton Bothwell, Emeritus Professor of Medicine of the University of theWitwatersrand, devoted much of his academic career, spanning more than 50 years, to the pursuit of scientificresearch aimed at improving the health and well-being of major sections of the world’s population. In doing so, he notonly realised these goals, but also set standards of excellence in scientific research that those that follow must striveto emulate. Professor Bothwell’s major research thrust has and continues to be iron metabolism and the consequencesof too little or too much of the metal. He has written more than 300 full-length articles in scientific and medicaljournals, chapters in international state-of-the-art textbooks, and invited reviews on many aspects of this subject.His two books on iron metabolism and its disorders are the most comprehensive references available and are essentialProf Thomas Bothwell (MASSAf)Winner of the ASSAf Science-for-SocietyGold MedalAnnual Report 2005/0665