Biocomplexity Incubation Activity: Development of the Human Species and Its Adaptation to the Envirionment

相当多的学术和大众的注意力继续集中在与理解“人类起源”有关的研究上——人类物种的发展及其对自然环境的适应。生物复杂性孵化活动奖将支持一个项目，该项目将聚集自然科学、社会和行为科学以及人文学科的多学科科学人才，制定研究策略，从不同的角度探索人类生物学、行为和社会的起源。它还将介绍有才华的初级研究人员，包括博士后助理和高级研究生参与这一广泛的挑战，并鼓励他们随着职业发展参与到这一领域和相关的多学科努力中来。这个项目的目标是为一个关于人类起源的重大多学科研究项目起草计划。为期两天的研讨会式会议将分为三个部分，汇集分子生物学家、遗传学家、进化发育生物学家、地质学家、计算机科学家、古生物学家、人类学家、认知科学家和人文学家，他们都对更好地了解人类起源有共同的兴趣。这个多学科小组将确定关键问题和潜在合作领域。第一次会议将集中讨论比较灵长类动物的基因组数据如何帮助破译人类的遗传基础。第二部分将侧重于人类进化的有机体和文化社会层面，特别关注地球不断变化的自然和生物环境对人类进化和语言发展的影响等问题。第三部分将集中讨论系统级方法和相关的计算机建模如何帮助科学家和其他研究人员探索一系列复杂的相互作用，例如那些将分子遗传和有机体发育以及文化社会组织联系起来的相互作用。本次会议将利用美国科学院的多学科学者基础，并将涉及全国人才的互补。会议参与者将大致平均分为初级和高级研究人员。在这些资深学者中，预计约有三分之一将成为中国科学院院士。这次会议将在研究人类起源方面产生协同作用，这是单一学科的学者会议甚至密切相关学科的会议所不可能做到的。

Considerable scholarly and popular attention continues to focus on research associated with understanding "human origins" -- the development of the human species and its adaptation to the natural environment. This Biocomplexity Incubation Activity award will support a project that will gather multidisciplinary scientific talent from the natural sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities to formulate research strategies that probe the origins of human biology, behavior, and society from diverse perspectives. It also will introduce talented junior researchers, including post-doctoral associates, and senior graduate students to this broad challenge and encourage them to become involved in this and related multidisciplinary efforts as their careers progress. This project's objective is to draft plans for a major, multidisciplinary research project on human origins. A two-day, workshop-style conference with three sessions will bring together molecular biologists, geneticists, evolutionary-developmental biologists, geologists, computer scientists, paleontologists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and humanists, all of whom share a common interest of better understanding of human origins. This multidisciplinary group will identify key issues and areas of potential collaboration. The first conference session will focus on how comparative primate, genomic data can help decipher the genetic basis of being human. The second will focus on the organismal and cultural-social levels of human evolution, with special attention to issues like the impacts of the Earth's changing physical and biological environment on human evolution and language development. The third session will focus on how system-level methods and related computer modeling can help scientists and other researchers to probe a range of complex interactions, such as those linking molecular genetic and organismal development and cultural-social organization. This conference will make use of the American Academy of Science's multidisciplinary base of scholars and will involve complementary talent nationwide. Conference participants will be about evenly divided between junior and senior researchers. Of the senior scholars, about one-third are expected to be Fellows of the Academy. The gathering will yield a synergy in the study of human origins that has not been possible with meetings of single disciplines of scholars or even in meetings of closely related disciplines.