Evolution: Foundations, Fundamentals, and Disease; Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

会议将于十二月七日至十日在香港科技大学举行，主题为“演化：基础、基本原理与疾病”，包括三个主题：（一）重新审视演化的基础;（二）利用物理学概念模拟演化;及（三）演化在生物疾病中的角色。前两部分的主要方法将是使用复杂系统物理学的思想来发展对进化的生物学理解的补充，而第二部分将侧重于疾病的进化。与会者将从理论和实验的角度解决疾病演变的基本问题。这是一个重新审视进化的基础及其后果的绝佳时机。人类现在正处于一场新的流感大流行之中，亚洲，特别是香港，过去一直处于流行病的中心。这些流行病是可怕的，同时也是我们对进化动力学了解甚少的一个教训。虽然有很多很多专门讨论进化论的会议，因为《物种起源》出版150周年，以及查尔斯达尔文诞辰200周年，但这些会议中的大多数都是生物学性质的。相比之下，这次会议的目的不是赞扬达尔文，而是从物理学的角度批判性地看待进化的基础以及进化与疾病进展之间的联系。会议将汇集物理学家和生物学家，从物理学的角度讨论进化的基本问题，并将成为跨学科研究的绝佳论坛。此外，它将带来来自不同国家的高级和初级科学家，不仅有助于下一代跨学科研究人员的教育，而且有助于国际科学合作。

The proposed meeting, "Evolution: Foundations, Fundamentals, and Disease" will be held between December 7 and December 10 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology will include three main themes: (I) Re-examining the Foundations of Evolution, (II) modeling evolution using the concepts of physics, and (III) The Role of Evolution in Biological Disease. The primary approach in the first two sections will be to use ideas from physics of complex systems to develop a complementary to biology understanding of evolution, while the second part will focus on disease evolution. The participants will address fundamental issues of the evolution of disease from both theoretical and experimental perspective. This is a perfect time to re-examine the foundations of evolution and its consequences. Humanity is now in the midst of a new flu pandemic and Asia, and Hong Kong in particular, has been at the epicenter of pandemics in the past. These pandemics are terrifying and at the same time a lesson on how little we understand about evolution dynamics. While there have been many, many meetings devoted to evolution, because of the 150th Anniversary of the publication of the Origin of the Species, and the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, most of these meetings have been intensely biological in nature. In contrast this meeting does not aim to praise Darwin but rather critically look at the foundations of evolution and the connection between evolution and disease progression from a physics perspective. The meeting will bring together physicists and biologists to discuss basic the questions of evolution from the point of view of physics and will be an excellent forum for interdisciplinary research. In addition it will bring senior as well as junior scientists from different countries and will not only contribute to the education of the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers, but also to international cooperation in science.