Category Design / Category Creation

Biological Parallel

Category creation is adaptive radiation into empty niche space. When mammals radiated after dinosaur extinction, they didn't compete in existing categories—they created new ones (marine mammals, flying mammals, burrowing mammals). The first species to define and dominate a new adaptive category becomes the template others are judged against. Category power is definitional: if you create the category, you set the selection criteria. But categories are temporary—continuous environmental change eventually fragments or eliminates them, forcing new radiation or extinction.