The Origins of the Clonal Selection Theory of Immunity A Case Study for Evaluation in Science

The advent of the clonal selection theory in the 1950s transformed immunology. The implications of the theory were explored extensively by the Australian F. Macfarlane Burnet, who received a Nobel prize in 1960 (1, 2). However, the prize was awarded for “the discovery of immunological tolerance,” and not for the clonal selection theory (3). Nevertheless, the theory is widely recognized as “Burnet’s clonal selection theory” (4-6).