Skyhook (concept)
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- See Skyhook (disambiguation) for other uses of the term skyhook.
The term skyhook is used by Daniel Dennett in the book Darwin's Dangerous Idea to describe a source of design complexity that did not build on lower, simpler layers - in simple terms, a miracle.
In philosophical arguments concerning the reducibility (or otherwise) of the human mind, Dennett's concept pokes fun at the idea of intelligent design emanating from on high, either subtaining from God, or providing its own grounds in an absurd, Munchausen-like bootstrapping manner.
Dennett also accuses various competing neo-Darwinian ideas of making use of such supposedly unscientific skyhooks in explaining evolution, coming down particularly hard on the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould.
Dennett contrasts theories of complexity which require such miracles with those based on "cranes", structures which permit the contruction of entities of greater complexity but which are themselves founded solidly "on the ground" of physical science.