A neologism to denote a penchant, particularly in the life sciences, for depicting the relevant disciplines as being ordered in a hierarchy of levels of organizations from the most ‘simple’ to most the ‘complex’, usually to evoke an anti-reductionist stance and in defence of emergence, or one espousing reductionism of all levels to the lowest one (perhaps by means of bridge laws) such as molecular biology.
See Bridge law (or principle), Emergence, Levels of analysis, Levels of organization, Life sciences, Reductionism