Scale should not be confused with hierarchy.
A hierarchy implies levels of control, authority, or explanatory priority.
Scale refers simply to different organisational contexts within which biological processes occur.
Cells, organisms, populations, ecosystems, and societies represent different scales of organisation.
APS does not assume that higher scales are more important than lower ones, or that lower scales are always more fundamental.
Different continuity problems emerge at different scales.
Biological explanation therefore requires movement across scales rather than reduction to a single privileged level.
Scale is an organisational relation, not a hierarchy of importance.