Preface

TY - JOUR

T1 - Preface

AU - Bromage, Timothy G.

AU - Vidal, Anxo

AU - Aguirre, Emiliano

AU - Perez-Ochoa, Alejandro

N1 - Funding Information: Timothy G. Bromage ⁎ tim.bromage@nyu.edu Anxo Vidal Emiliano Aguirre Alejandro Perez-Ochoa New York University College of Dentistry, United States ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 212 998 9597. Contained in this book are the proceedings of the Fundación Ramón Areces International Symposium, which was held April 18–20, 2005 in Madrid, Spain, concerning research in human health and evolution subject areas. Invited participants were given the following preamble and asked to concentrate their efforts in contributions arising on the integration of these subjects. By itself, human biology is so complex and poses problems so great, that advances in human health and evolution ought to be shared in the context of a renewed integrative research campaign. Currently however, members of the social, life, physical, and medical science communities frequently investigate issues separately from one another, overlooking important connections to neighboring disciplines. In addition, the present emphasis on cellular, molecular and genetic approaches, contrasts sharply with the lack of coordinated effort and financial support for integrative approaches to structural, functional, and historical problems constraining the human condition: we cannot ignore history, and the human condition is all about history. History explains the normal and abnormal behaviors of cells, tissues, and organs on very short timescales (milliseconds to minutes, days, and years), which clinical scientists are eager to exploit, while structural, functional, and historical perspectives over longer time frames (thousands to several millions of years) have the capacity to provide the larger context, the design if you will, of the body, its vulnerability to change, and the origins of the human condition concerning us today. The relationships between these extremes of historical scale are incompletely explored by science, yet they are as firmly bound together as the fabric of life itself. Their combined study in this symposium represents not only scientific balance, but also the potential for profound novel insights on the human condition. A canvassing of participants, by instruction of the Fundación Ramón Areces, concentrated on matching the complementary interests of a variety of international scientists with a selection of Spanish researchers. This has resulted in what we believe is a sound representation of subject areas presently occupied by researchers focusing on both human health and evolution. A perusal through the Contents illustrates foci in bone and craniofacial biology, genetics, paleopathology and disease, psychology, and life history approaches. However, despite the obvious integrative potential, it has long been our feeling that researchers often keep the health and evolution aspects of their research lives somewhat separate in publication. Our primary interest in the symposium was thus to explore, in the context of individual research endeavors, what it is that connects these subjects in one person. The result of this inquiry is informative. We observed that the difference between interdisciplinary and integrative approaches is more than semantic. Interdisciplinary approaches bring two or more fields to bear on a subject. This brings collegiality and efficiency to scientific research but it does not necessarily result in significant cooperation, sharing, or material impact on one subject arising from the activities of another. Participants asked to present their interdisciplinary research, for instance, might approach their subject with an emphasis on the interface between fields; e.g. “here are the evolutionary aspects of my research, and over here are the human health consequences”. Integrative approaches, on the other hand, do not exhibit a discrete interface. Rather, the subjects seem miscible, and we find ourselves in the midst of a network, the potential of which we have begun to more fully appreciate at this symposium. Interactions are promoted that lead to investigative research at all scales and in all directions of science, with links that connect our specific areas of interest otherwise contained within separate domains of the network. Indeed, at the symposium's end, participants celebrated this perspective on integrative science in a visit to Oseos Cosmos: The Shapes of Time , an art exhibition which highlighted digital photomicrographic images of hard tissue biology relevant to the social, natural, and physical sciences. The proceeds of this exhibition go to support human cancer and evolution research. Many thanks go to Sr. D. Juan González-Palomino, General Secretary of Fundación Ramón Areces, to Dr. Julio Rodriguez-Villanueva, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Foundation for their support, and to the Foundation staff for their hospitality and professionalism, which was shown to us during our few wonderful spring days in Madrid. We thank Tiago Vidal for translations of the abstracts. We also thank the Diputación, Provincial de Toledo and the Avantis Group for their support of the art exhibition on our behalf, which was so expertly produced by Carmen Buro and Juan Luis Moraza. Finally, we are grateful to Elsevier for their support of this project and to Beverly Burns for the careful attention given throughout the production process.

PY - 2006/6

Y1 - 2006/6

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33745156099&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33745156099&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ics.2006.03.044

DO - 10.1016/j.ics.2006.03.044

M3 - Editorial

AN - SCOPUS:33745156099

VL - 1296

SP - v-vi

JO - International Congress Series

JF - International Congress Series

SN - 0531-5131

ER -