Templeton Foundation: Foundational Questions in Evolutionary Biology [FQEB] project - 3 pages Letters of Interest

The FQEB project aims to fund at least 10 research projects ($200K/year X 2 years) to generate new kinds of knowledge and understanding in core areas in biology where there have been serious "missing knowledge problems." There are 2 core themes of this initiative:
Theme 1: "Evolutionary Origins and Dynamics":
* What is the transition from chemical kinetics to evolutionary dynamics, and can the transition from non-evolving to evolving systems be defined precisely and formally?
* Are there different kinds of evolution, and is there evolution in the context of evolution itself?
* What are the natural laws of evolutionary change, and can we derive a complete mathematical theory of evolutionary laws?
* How does population structure affect evolutionary dynamics, and what role might coordination/cooperation play?
* What are the differences between genetic and cultural evolution, and how can these differences be formalized?
* What is the role of chance (stochasticity) in evolutionary dynamics?
Theme 2: "Evolvability and the Evolution of Increasing Complexity":
* What are the typical limits of evolvability, and how are these transcended?
* Why does evolution (sometimes) lead to increasing complexity?
* What are the evolutionary origins of emergence?
* How does cooperation affect construction?
* Can we build precise models for the evolution of cells, multi-cellular organisms, animal societies and human language?
* What is the role of multi-level selection in the larger evolutionary process?
http://www.templeton.org/node/1521