Editor’s Comments to Varela, Chernyak and Tauber

Abstract

The history of immunology has been marked by lively theoretical debate from the earliest polemics between Metchnikoff’s cellular proponents and the humoralists, to later controversies as to the generative basis of antibody formation (germ-line vs. somatic mutation models and instructive vs. selective theories), and more recently regulatory circuits vs. idiotypic network theory. These debates have played an important role in the experimental development of the field, and not surprisingly, as immunology has become more complex both in its self-evaluation and dependence (or interaction) on other biological disciplines, its theoretical concerns have become more sophisticated.