Levels and Hierarchies in Evolution

Abstract I analyse the main characteristics of the hierarchy of levels of selection as manifestors of adaptation (i.e., hierarchy of levels of evolutionary organization) and show that, while ranked, this hierarchy is non-nested. Secondly, I consider a potential objection to my approach derived from Eronen and Ramsey’s (2022) claim that levels of organization should be teased apart from levels of selection . I argue that their approach rests on a failure to distinguish between interactors and manifestors of adaptation, for while a hierarchy of interactors does not correspond to a hierarchy of levels of organization, a hierarchy of manifestors does.