Convergent Evolution is the term used to describe when similar traits/features start to pop up in creatures that don’t share any recent ancestors. It’s sort of like an evolutionary best practices.
Examples of Convergent Evolution
- Thumbs - humans, possums, chameleons
- Bats & Birds
- Everything turns into a crab
- Trees - different types of trees come from wildly different backgrounds, apparently.
Societal Equivalent
You could say that similar ideas/inventions that were formulated in a vacuum would be a case of convergent innovation. This is probably less common in the real world than simple Imitation/copying… but also it doesn’t matter. Notion comes out and suddenly there are a lot of Notion-like products come out the woodworks.
Source
- crab example from above linked to source
- Video about the Plant Map