op Akkerhuis, Gerard AJM Jagers, ed. Evolution and transitions in complexity: the science of hierarchical organization in nature . Springer, 2016.
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This book offers an integration of the results of a scientific quest that started in 1994.The quest’s goal was to identify levels of complexity in the organisation of nature. For the identification of such levels a scientific tool was developed, a “complexity ladder” that was named the Operator Hierarchy. This ladder adds many new insights to the classical ladder of nature, known as the scala naturae, which offered an allegorical ranking of kinds of entities according to “increasing perfection.” The scala naturae started with minerals and extended to plants, animals, humans, angels, and god. There are many reasons why few people consider the classical ranking a scientific approach, for example because it lacks mechanisms and includes non-material entities (e.g. angels). Because of such incongruences, the scala naturae has contemptuously been classified as an archaic approach that should be abolished, like scientists have abolished the idea that the sun orbits the earth. However, if one categorically rejects all ideas about ladders, one risks throwing the baby of hierarchical
thinking out with the bathwater of allegorical thinking.