Talk:Howard Bloom

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Based on his book, "The Lucifer Principle: a scientific expedition into the forces of history" Howard Bloom's goal in life seem to be to spread misinformation, fear and hatred towards Islam and Muslims. Below are some quotes and references from the book:

In his hardcover book, Bloom ostensibly writes about the concept of the "Superorganism"; something that gets into a host and then grows until it destroys the host from within.

Howard Bloom: sorry, Jeff, this definition of superorganism is wildly inaccurate.

Yet, every time he talks about such a superorganism (Ebola, HIV etc.,)

Howard Bloom: the word ebola does NOT appear in The Lucifer Principle. Nor is a superorganism compared to HIV. Please stick to the facts.

, he goes on to equate it with Islam, the prophet Mohammed or Muslims in terms such as (p 176), "...the Mohammedan superorganism in the East..." and (p.187 referring to Islam) "Ideology is not the only mechanism that allows a superorganism to pounce".

Howard Bloom: This phrase appears in a chapter that uses two examples: the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the 1,370 years of battle between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. It is a general chapter on the hunger of superorganisms. It puts the battle between white Russians and Red Russians in 1917 and the Sunni vs. Shiite struggle on an equal footing...as examples of a principle...the tendency of superorganisms, social groups, to seek growth.

(p.188 referring to Muslim conquests) "...digesting them (territories) as segments of an entity whose name the world was only now beginning to hear - the empire of Islam".)

Howard Bloom: the empire of islam grew to eleven times the size of the conquests of Alexander the Great, five times the size of the Roman Empire, and seven times he size of the United States. To ignore or underplay militant Islam's importance in world history would be an act of ignorance.

He refers to the prophet Mohammed as, "A street corner ranter" and on the same page (p.171) continues with, "The notions of a man who had claimed to meet an angel in a cave would spawn battles whose bloodshed would soak the Earth for the next fourteen hundred years."

hb: Jesus, St. Paul, and Karl Marx are referred to in similar terms. The genocidal Jews of the Old Testament are compared to the murderous brown rats that German researcher F. Steiniger studied in the 1940s. Jesus is referred to as a backwoods preacher. Saint Paul is portrayed as a slick big-city promoter. And Karl Marx is described as, "so foul tempered, so can¬tankerous, so subject to turning even the tiniest discussion into a quarrel that he had few friends and almost no followers." Despite the colloquial vocabulary, these portrayals have been checked extensively for factual accuracy.

In his chapter (p. 223), "ARE THERE KILLER CULTURES?", he describes how there are so many types of killer cultures and then continues with, "Islamic societies tend to be high on this list."

hb: correct. And factual.

He frequently makes out-of-context references from the Quran

hb: this is radically inaccurate. Every quote from the Qu'ran has been triple checked against the original.

including quotes that are just partial enough to substantiate his position. On the flip side, his only reference (p.230) to the Crusades is, "The West managed to turn the tables briefly when the Crusades established a short-lived Middle-Eastern toehold"; no note of the slaughters of the tens of thousands of Muslims, Jews and even Arab Christians, by the Crusaders.

hb: there are dozens of references to the Crusades in The Lucifer Principle. Here's one of them. Does it underplay the violence of the Crusaders?

On their way through Asia Minor, the Crusaders literally roasted Christian babies in cases of mistaken identity. Because the local folk did not speak a language they understood, the chivalrous knights assumed the panicky babblers were heathens. Heathens, of course, deserved no mercy. So the heroes sliced up the adults and baked the infants on spits, all the while thinking of how the girls back home would admire their bravery.

As a Jew himself, one would have hoped that Bloom should be foremost among those who stop misinformation and fear against people and faiths but, such hopes have no chance of survival at Bloom's door.

hb: as numerous Moslem scholars have told you, Islam is not merely a faith like others, it is what The Institute of Islamic Information and Education calls "a complete system of life." (See The Moral System of Islam, III&E Brochure Series; No. 6. Published by The Institute of Islamic Information and Education.) That "complete system" includes a political system, a moral system, a code of daily behavior, and...a military system. Muhammad mounted 65 military expeditions and personally led 29 of them. The twelfth century Islamic military tactician Abu Bakr of Tortosa was one of many scholars who outlined Mohammed's own methods of warfare and turned those examples into practical guides for strategy and tactics. It's important that Westerners study this aspect of Islam. To date, it has been sorely neglected in our accounts of history.

Jeffsiddiqui 06:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

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==Howard Bloom==

This article on Howard Bloom does not read like an encyclopedia article. Many of the links need to be cleaned up as well. Yorick 09:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I see the version at 03:11, 19 December 2005 by User:ABCD in much more like a normal article ... that was the last before the subject of the article got to it! DogsBreakfast 11:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Added to User:Sophysduckling/Desk RJFJR 14:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

reassign per req.

Added to User:Ilyanep/Desk RJFJR 06:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Reassign per req. (outside area of expertise).

Added to User:Reverie98/Desk RJFJR 02:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Howard Bloom, has edited Wikipedia as
Howbloom (talk · contribs).
This user's editing has included this article.

Readers are encouraged to review Wikipedia:Autobiography for information concerning autobiographical articles on Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Big Bang Tango

Hi, I work with Howard Bloom in the Big Bang Tango Media Lab located at www.BigBangTango.net and wanted to give a notice of this URL to be added to the Howard Bloom Wikipedia page.

~JZ

BigBangTango.net editor

H. Bloom archivist

[edit] Genius info

Does anyone have any informations about him apart from his being a genius ;-)? I'll try to find some... Sid 13:26, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

This page NEEDS to be cleaned up.

[edit] Bloom Inc.

Bloom's writing is polemical, not scientific. He does commit howlers - factually and logically - the chimps fighting tigers, the naturalistic fallacy - I can't be bothered with detailing the many conflations of belief and evidence present in his Lucifer Principle.

hb: if it's of any consolation to you, I corrected the tiger inaccuracy years ago. It does not appear in the paperback (1997) edition. Are you the person I have to thank for pointing out the mistake? If so, thank you.Howbloom

I hope, for the sake of balance, someone can.

Bloom needs intelligent critics. I like his book, but I wouldn't call it science. It's more of a romp - engaging, highly persuasive, and thus good material to test your belief threshold.

What he is undoubtedly good at is selling himself. I don't buy the 'genius' tag - his is a kind of middlebrow flattery for those who don't know how to think, but prefer to adorn their ignorance in terms like 'science' and other arousing totems.

The book's success is perhaps another example of the superstitious attitude to grand sounding terminology, which allows persons to reduce matters to cliches distilled from a sophisticated appeal to their vanity.

Lionel Fanshawe Blooming Nuisance

[edit] Notability

It's obvious that Bloom is notable, but it necessary to include what shows he's been on? It's not really as though we have a "resume" of media appearances at the end of everyone else's articles. I think that the second to last two paragraphs are just evidence of why there should be an article on him, not the content of the article. Sophy's Duckling 23:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

I can't find very many sources for this. Most of the google results come up with Wiki scrapes. Those that don't copy from older versions of this article are widely not source materiel (i.e. blogs, amazon.com reviews). 130.253.5.179 23:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC) - a mention: said Howard Bloom, publisher of the Ottawa-based Sports Business News online journal [1]

[edit] Citation

I found a citation today in the introduction to Steven Pinker's 'The Blank Slate'. It mentions 'Howard Bloom' in a list of persons who contributed material or ideas, or submitted same for consideration in the preparation of Pinker's book.--Lionel HQ Fanshawe 22:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning

Problems, maybe nomination for deletion

I'm starting to think that this article cannot be saved.

1 The majority of the references to Bloom I have come across are either written by him or written by someone, like the Disinformation thing, who has vested interest in making him appear more important than he actually might be. In other words, there are no sources.

hb: could you please explain in what way the Disinformation Company has a special interest in Bloom? Have you read the articles on and reviews of Bloom in: Spin, Gear, Skeptic, the Village Voice, the Toronto Star, the New York Times Metro Section, The Research Libraries Group webpage, the Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, the What is Enlightenment website, or the Life Enhancement Neofiles? If you need them and if I can find the time, I will provide either the articles or the detailed information on their appearance to you. There are other sources: New York Magazine, Delta Airlines In-Flight Magazine, Timothy White's biographical book on Bob Marley, The Billboard Guide to Music Publicity (which has 20 pages on Bloom), What is Sex by Dorion Sagan and National Medal of Science winner Lynn Margulis, Art Direction Magazine, The New York Post, and quite a few others. Many of them are pre-1995. In other words, they come from an era before print articles were commonly available online.Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

2 So most of this is unverifiable.

hb: please see partial list of sources for verification above. And take a look at NONZERO & NONSENSE. By: Wilson, David Sloan. Skeptic, 2000, Vol. 8 Issue 1, p84, 6p; (AN ). Whoops, a look at this article reminds me, Telepolis, the German high-tech culture magazine, serialized my second book, Global Brain, as 21 separate monthly articles, so you may take a look at http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/special/glob.html. Or you can try Google-findable sources like http://www.nammys.com/2002pr1a.htmlHowbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

- The "childhood & education" I can't find anything that says he went to New York University

hb: this tends to cast doubts on your ability as a researcher. Try the NYU alumni department or call NYU's Graduate School of Psychology and ask for neurobiology pioneer E.E. (Ted)Coons. Or try Dr. Coons' direct phone number--.

, let alone won an award and studied cosmology when he was 12 (studied? did he go to Columbia University summer classes, or did he peep through a toy telescope? if the first, it's not verifiable, if the second, it's irrelevent).

hb: Bloom grew up in Buffalo, New York, not New York City. He had no access to Columbia University. For the basic biographical details see: Who's Who In Science and Engineering; Who's Who In America; and Who's Who In the World.Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

- Did he really start the careers of everyone from Michael Jackson

hb: no, of course not. Michael Jackson's career started long before my 20-year field expedition into pop culture landed me in his presence. However I worked with Michael and his brothers on their Victory Tour in 1984. There are literally hundreds of newspaper clippings quoting me as the group's spokesperson. If you have access to Lexus or Nexus, it may be possible to find them electronically.
I did help start the careers of Prince and Joan Jett--who were both 19 when we began our collaboration. And I did either help start or helped build the careers of many, many others. Again, for details see New York Magazine, Billboard Magazine, Record World Magazine, Circus Magazine (which I edited from , so you'll easily find my name on the masthead), and the Billboard Guide to Music Publicity.Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

to MTV? It's impressive if it's true, but there's not a single source out there to suggest it is--unless, of course, you count him and people who have interest in publicizing him. And we unfortunately can't consider him a source because "Wikipedia's policy on verifiability prohibits the inclusion of things that are not verifiable from independent sources."

- Media Appearances. I mentioned these above. i've found a reference on a blog to appearances on NPR. and there is an article on coast to coast about him. CNN has no transcript, NPR has no audio, I can find, and...nothing! there was something about Coast to Coast, not the most reliable of all possible sources.

hb: the CNN, Good Morning America, ABC Morning News, and many other TV appearances were in the 1980s. I've done 24 Coast to Coast appearances as of . Coast-to-Coast's information about dates of appearance are very accurate. Admittedly, the show is not one from which you can get information on a subject's scientific credibility. But, again, your research tool is extremely limited. Your reference to a Blog indicates that you've only been using the WWW. It also hints that you may have missed quite a bit even of what's available in cyberspace. Try something basic like this: http://frontwheeldrive.com/howard_bloom.html Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

- Criticism. Quite frankly, nobody seems to care enough about Bloom to criticize him.

hb: much as I hate to admit being criticised, take a look at the 121 reviews of The Lucifer Principle on Amazon.com. Many of the negative reviews were orchestrated by the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada. However there are many that come from independent sources. By the way, it's difficult for an author no one cares about to accumulate more than 150 reviews on Amazon.com. The cumulative total of reviews for The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain is closer to 160 (as of 04-27). Howbloom

Cafe Arabica, the source I added, does accuse him of racism. there are plenty of blogs out there calling him unscientific, but there aren't any *articles* on the subject.

hb: sorry, not true. Please see above. Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

3 More relevent wiki material

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vanity_page

Looking more closely at Mr. Bloggs' activities Nothing against Mr. Bloggs, but his personal activities just aren't highly noteworthy, nor useful for Wikipedia. These activities might appear to be the activities of a good, but rather typical individual. This list of activities doesn't include any especially noteworthy work he has done, and it does not explain why an article about him should exist in the first place. Even in the cases of decidedly famous people, these people's unrealized aspirations, thoughts, and hobbies are seldom included in Wikipedia, unless they are directly salient, and, more importantly, verifiable. Wikipedia's policy on verifiability prohibits the inclusion of things that are not verifiable from independent sources. With such stringent standards being applied to even decidedly famous people, they also apply to Mr. Bloggs and any edit or article that describes him.

Vanity edits: examples In addition to vanity articles themselves, there are other certain types of edits within non-vanity articles that may be deemed as vanity edits. Vanity edits can include:

The insertion of links that appear to promote products by pointing to obscure or not particularly relevant commercial sites. (Also called commercial links.) The insertion of links that appear to promote otherwise obscure individuals by pointing to their personal pages. (Vanity links.) The insertion of photographic materials that may appear to be unnecessarily promoting products or individuals which may not be the central topics of any given article. (Vanity photos.) The insertion of any textual personal biographical information within an article which does not significantly add to the clarity or meaning of the article. (Vanity text edits.)

With this in mind, I'm going to delete everything that is not verified by an external source, and we can add it back as we get sources; if everything is verified, it will be a good article, and if nothing is verified, its not more than a vanity page helped along by other users. 130.253.5.179 22:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

hb: please do a more thorough job of research before going deletion-crazy. I know this is difficult, but please try something that DOES cover pre-1995 material--the print section of a library. Howbloom 07:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crit section

I deleted this section but am happy to discuss. I did so because the source quoted [2] actually misquotes Bloom in several respects. Bloom says "certain Islamic societies" not all, he does in fact footnote his quotes from the Koran, he also says islam has its positive sides (the website does not ack this. At p176 in the book Bloom says "Christians by the millions would take upon themselves the privlege of killing, torturing and raping those who weren't members of their triumphant creed." Thus the crit section I have deleted is an attempt by a special pleading group to imply he singles out islam. Mccready 16:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your point, but I dont think removal of that section is in accordance with Wiki's policies (what if someone went deleted this article because s/he thought the reasoning behind the movement to impeach the American President was incorrect?). Im going to revert it for the time being. Please respond on the talk page if you still disagree so we can avoid an edit war. 130.253.5.179 00:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your support, Mccready. But I agree with 130.253.5.179|130.253.5.179 . It's historically significant that an author has come under organized attack for writing material that displeases a special interest group. It's an indication of a possible trend of censorship--and in this case that trend is hidden and plays a major role in what you are allowed to read and what you are not supposed to see. Howbloom 06:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A few notes from Bloom

A few notes:

re: "I wouldn't call it science". Roughly a hundred scientists have called it just that--science. You can find some of these quotes at http://www.howardbloom.net/bloom.pdf. Or I can provide you with a complete list.

re: is "it necessary to include what shows he's been on"? No.

re: "I can't find anything that says he went to New York University, let alone won an award and studied cosmology when he was 12 (studied? did he go to Columbia University summer classes, or did he peep through a toy telescope? if the first, it's not verifiable, if the second, it's irrelevent)." and "I'm going to delete everything that is not verified by an external source."

If this well-intentioned individual is incapable of calling an alumni office, calling teachers, calling classmates, or calling those with whom I worked at places like The Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Research Center when I was sixteen, does he really qualify as an encyclopedia article researcher? Google is a wonderful tool for research, but it is very poor at picking up things that happened before 1995--especially things that were never covered in the press. And let's face it--how many childhoods have been covered in the press?

My staff or I can provide names, phone numbers, and research leads to anyone interested in checking out the facts with independent sources.

Howard Bloom howlbloom@aol.com


ps for what it's worth, Wikipedia long ago became my default encyclopedia and shows up many, many times in the footnotes of material I've written during the last year. I'm often astonished by your depth, your usability, and your accuracy.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Howbloom (talk • contribs) But the inaccurcies in an article on me, and tiny inaccuracies I found today in the Wiki article on Michael Jackson are making me wonder. However I'm a wikipedia enthusiast, so I'll stick with the process. (I corrected the errors in the Michael Jackson piece to the best of my ability.)Howbloom 07:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

thank you for "sticking with the process". A lot of Wikipedians have ego trips about minor edits to articles, and you're actually the subject of one. You're correct; I do only use the web, and, while I'm not physically incapable of stalking down phone numbers of NYU employees, I don't have the time. What I did find on the internet were several chat interviews, Coast to Coast references, some blogs, the Cafe arabica "racist" thing, and a newspaper article on something in Canada that you ran/run. I also found some of your websites. I also did look up Amazon.com as well, but Wiki doesn't use reviews there as sources. And there was something on NPR. in light of this, you're probably right that I did got delete-happy. However, the article as it stands now is not quite satisfactory. for instance, the description of your lab rats and microscopes and lizards is as long as the description of your papers. I'd advocate cutting down on the "early life" section and adding some sources, print or otherwise (see other articles on formatting this) in the long list of entertainment people. finally the reason i'm putting the cleanup tag back on is that the article isn't all formatted according to wiki rules yet. 130.253.5.179 22:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

hb: thanks for your patience and for your commitment, UTC. Howard Bloom


[edit] copyedit

Hi, overall, a very well written article in my opinion. I proofed it, and tried to clean it up a little for you. Maybe someone could double check it, and then you can remove that tag. This was my first attempt at a major edit like this, so please let me know if I missed anything... - Adolphus79 06:03, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] is this a joke?

He updated the Boy Scout Handbook chapter on masturbation, rewrote field manuals on stalking, tracking, and camouflage. 130.253.5.179 20:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a joke, or maybe The Boyscout Handbook is a jokebook (like The Catholic Schoolgirl's Guide to Sex). I know that there's nothing on masturbation in my brothers' BSA handbooks. Maybe HowBloom could comment? Sophy's Duckling 04:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Howard Bloom's wikipedia account deleted???

Seems he had a wikipedia account under nick Howbloom. Anyone know why it doesn't work anymore?

Was he banned or something?

[edit] Bloom's credentials?

Can someone clear up the conflicting info--sometimes on sites he's referred to as "Dr" but no indication of any degree. His official bio has him graduating from NYU and being a "visiting" professor or "scholar, but the only Howard Bloom listed anywhere for NYU is a completely different Howard Bloom. The whole story seems a little fishy. The other credentials dont at all match claims of being invloved in "theroretical physics" and the like. Anyone have a clue? BabyDweezil 19:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schizophrenia?

Have a read of anything on http://www.bigbangtango.net/website/G-U-T/G-U-T.htm I've read a lot of scientific writings in my time, and personally, with no offence intended, if Howard Bloom is actually the author of this "Grand Unified Theory" then hes a nut, pure and simple. I'd go so far as to suggest he has delusions of grandeur (claims of genius, claiming to understand the whole universe, TYPING IN ALL-CAPS TO EMPHASIS THE PROFOUND NATURE OF HS REALISATIONS etc..)

This would suggest to me that he is suffering from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Im ambidextrous and like right brain holistic thinking, but you can take "theories of everthing" too far...

Tom Michael - Mostly Zen Image:Baby_tao.jpg (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of this information focuses on his "early life" right from his own website. It attempts to portray him as some child prodigy, supra-genius, however, his claims are clearly exaggerated. He is intelligent, however, his theories are more sensationalist hype than sound science. This emphasis on his childhood accomplishments is testament to the fact that he hasn't done much since. He is content to rest on his teenage laurels, and uses that to create the image of a superior intelligence who doesn't need advanced degrees, sound scientific process, or even critical thinking to support his views. many more prominent, prestigious figures have much less detailed info about their childhood. It is somewhat pathetic for a man of his age to put such emphasis on his pre-college years in order to credentialize himself, often exaggerating his so-called accomplishments which are more just associations with local Buffalo inteligentsia. I agree with the one poster that this is nothing more than a vanity page. Howard Bloom is not a noteworthy scholar, it is loaded with self-promotional descriptions. This article has been edited heavily by Howard Bloom himself, and should be considered a vanity page. I add my vote for deletion.24.51.31.12 22:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Length notability and vanity?

This is too long and as it is written does rather border on vanity page. experiments Mr. Bloom did when he was twelve aren't notable, however interesting. as a suggestion, perhaps the entire "early life" section could be severely cut, perhaps even deleted entirely, especially if keeping it will lead to remarks like the above, which don't belong on wiki any more than do self-aggrandizement. i request that mr bloom both ignore the rude parts of what the two above have said, which violate the civility bits of wiki, and that he consider cutting down on excessive details. Penguinwithaspear 04:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This is definitely a vanity page. I believe the biography should be reduced to his degrees (alma mater is ok) and a paragraph on his career as a publicist. Nothing else is notable. 65.220.25.66 19:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)