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.
