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Francisco Varela and the Immunological Self
Author(s) -
Vaz Nelson M
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.1126
Subject(s) - autopoiesis , yesterday , epistemology , cognitive science , neglect , closure (psychology) , sociology , environmental ethics , neuroscience , psychology , philosophy , political science , law , physics , astronomy , psychiatry
Francisco Varela, a leading neurobiologist and cognitive scientist, made a 10‐year‐long incursion into immunology. His in‐depth contributions aimed to develop a systemic description to replace the standard stimulus/response/regulation scaffold that has governed immunology since its inception in the 19th century. Many of these efforts involved expansions of the notions introduced by Niels Jerne in his idiotypic network theory (Jerne, 1974a, 1974b) with the added notion of organizational closure, derived from the autopoietic theory. However, today, just like yesterday, the immunological community remains inclined to neglect these efforts and instead rests satisfied with half‐a‐century old clonal selection concepts (Burnet, 1959). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.