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BIOGRAPHY Early Life Born in 1943 in Buffalo, New York. At the age of ten Bloom became involved in science. Galvanized by the role models of Anton Van Leeuwenhoek , Galileo , and Albert Einstein , Bloom cajoled his parents into buying him a used professional microscope and dove into microbiology. Following the lead of yet another role model, founder of the Big Bang Theory George Gamow , Bloom also plunged into theoretical physics and cosmology. At the age of 12, Bloom was tutored in outside-the-box science by Emil Rappaport, head of research and development for the Moog Valve Corporation . Rappaport was the man responsible for a breakthrough aircraft technology, the balanced flapper two-stage valve. Bloom built his first . That computer won a Westinghouse National Science Prize (see Intel Science Talent Search ). And it helped get Wolfberg into MIT. Bloom was granted a private audience to brainstorm on cosmology at the age of twelve with the head of the Graduate Physics Department of the University Of Buffalo (now known as The State University Of New York At Buffalo ). Meanwhile, Bloom borrowed books on industrial formulae from his local library, made cold cream from scratch, learned about Surfactants , became fascinated by the puzzles of Surface Tension , and learned about Piezoelectricity by building a germanium diode radio. His attempt to anneal wire for an advanced electrical coil failed, as did his attempt to build a transistor radio from a kit. But these endeavors taught him a few of the basics of electrical engineering. Bloom had half a dozen lab rats multiplying in his bedroom along with guinea pigs, fish, and lizards. From a book on herpatology, Bloom learned how to raise a lizard from an egg. He secured an egg from a local pet store, and succeeded in hatching his first reptile. Bloom's interest in animal behavior would later surface in his books. At sixteen, while sick in bed for three months with hepatitis, Bloom borrowed course materials and a textbook from one of his nurses who was taking a course at the University of Buffalo in elementary psychology. Bloom put himself through the course in an era when psychology focused on the drive theories of . When he regained his health, Bloom's headmaster, E. Barton Chapin, Jr of The Park School Of Buffalo , secured Bloom the right to attend courses at The University of Buffalo. At UB, Bloom plunged into philosophy. His study of Aristotle and Nietzsche would prove a potent influence in Bloom's books. Then Bloom was brought in to the Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Research Institute as a summer lab assistant in the biochemistry department, aiding in early research on the Immune System . Though he was technically too young to enter Roswell Park's summer program, Bloom was recruited by the biochemistry department's head, Dr. David Pressman , one of Linus Pauling 's students and proteges, who, in the words of a Roswell Park historical chronology, had just won "worldwide recognition for his research on the structural characterization of antibodies and the application of antibodies to define surface antigens, including those found on neoplastic cells" http://www.roswellpark.org/AboutUs/HistoricalHighlights. Bloom entered Reed College in 1961, dropped out before the term "drop out" was coined, and plowed through a series of adventures chronicled in his unpublished book How I Accidentally Started The Sixties, www.howardbloom.net/sixties.htm . In 1963, Bloom returned to scientific work, doing research on B.F. Skinner 's Programmed Learning at Rutgers Graduate School of Education under Dr. Merrill Harmon, known for his work on Values Clarification . Bloom eventually returned to school at New York University , graduating magna cum laude and phi beta kappa in 1968. Bloom has been mentored since 1988 by one of his key teachers at NYU, Dr. E.E. Coons , of NYU's Graduate Psychology Department. Dr. Coons discovered the basic functions of the hypothalamus, and is the keeper of the legacy of Neil Miller , one of psychology's most important 20th century researchers, and one of those whose work had made an indelible impression on Bloom when he was sixteen. CAREER Early career Bloom edited grant proposals and conference procedings for Sol Gordon , head of the Middlesex County Mental Health Clinic and author of books like ''How Can You Tell If You're Really in Love?'' and ''All Families Are Different'' 1963 . A year later, Bloom edited and wrote for the Boy Scouts Of America during a summer vacation, updating the Boy Scout Handbook chapter on masturbation, rewriting field manuals on stalking, tracking, and camouflage, and finally writing ''Ten Steps to Organize a Boy Scout Troop'', the manual on how to build new Boy Scout troops from scratch 1966 . Since Bloom had been kicked out of the Boy Scouts for incompetence at Morse Code, the experience convinced him that if you do enough research and you care enough about your reader, you can write on any subject. Bloom then edited and art-directed an experimental graphics and literary magazine that won two National Academy of Poets prizes 1967 - 1968 . Between - 1973 . After starting public and artist relations departments for . Bloom was also consulted on a regular basis during the formative days of a venture that became MTV , and devised and ran three programs for the black community--an Earth, Wind, & Fire campaign to raise the visibility of The National Black United Fund (see www.nbuf.org/ ), Lionel Richie 's SuperStudent Program (sponsored by Pepsi Cola ), and Kool And The Gang 's It's Kool to Stay In School campaign (sponsored by Coca Cola ). With Spin Magazine founder Bob Guccione Jr and rock manager David Krebs, who launched Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, the Scorpions, and AC/DC, Bloom co-founded the national anti-censorship group Music In Action . Bloom was the organization's day-to-day work horse, battling a campaign by Tipper Gore , Susan Baker, and other wives of high-placed government officials, who had founded the Parents Music Resource Center , the PMRC. The PMRC was a thinly disguised front for the early stages of the late 20th Century's " Culture War s" between the radical religious right and what the radical right called "secular humanism". Bloom appeared on television and radio combatting what he felt was the "propaganda" of born again extremism from 1984 to 1991. This "culture war" continues today in the struggle between "values based" ultra-conservative Christian groups and those who they believe represent "anti-Christian" and "anti-Biblical" values. In addition, Bloom assigned one of the account executives of The Howard Bloom Organization, Rhonda Markowitz, to defend political rock singer Jello Biafra from the attacks of the radical right. Current endeavors Bloom is a faculty member of The Graduate Institute's Conscious Evolution and Organizational Leadership programs. He is a recent visiting scholar in the Graduate Psychology Department at NYU. He is founder of the Big Bang Tango Media Lab (see www.bigbangtango.net ). He also founded the Group Selection Squad, a team of forty scientists who championed Group Selection and Multi-level Selection over commonly accepted Neo-Darwinian theories. His campaign was supported by David Sloan Wilson , an important evolutionary scientist, and one of the first to introduce the term "multi-level selection". In Theoretical Physics , Bloom is the co-author and supporter of the hidden-time approach to Quantum Theory , developed by Pavel Kurakin and George Malinetsky, of the Keldysh Institute Of Applied Mathematics at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Bloom is a founding board member of both the Epic of Evolution Society and The Darwin Project, and is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science (see http://www.psychologicalscience.org/ ), the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, The International Society of Human Ethology , the Academy of Political Science, and the NASA -founded Aerospace Technologies Working Group . He is also an advisory board member of the Institute For Accelerating Change . Writings Bloom has written three books, ''The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History'' and ''Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century'', and ''How I Accidentally Started the Sixties''. Three international conferences have been convened on the unfinished draft of his next book, ''Reinventing Capitalism: Putting Soul In the Machine--A Radical Reperception of Western Civilization''. Those conferences have been in New York (December 2005), in Amsterdam (March 2006), and Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia 2006 . As of . Bloom's articles have appeared in the '''s trilogy: ''You Are Being Lied To'', ''Everything You Know is Wrong'', and ''Abuse Your Illusions''. Recognition Bloom has been featured in every issue of ''Who's Who in Science and Engineering'' since the publication's inception in 1991. He's won a small slew of awards from Performance Magazine 1978 - 1988 . And he's been awarded the Global Entertainment and Media Summit's only Award for Lifetime Achievement and Commitment to Career Excellence 2005 . CRITICISM Bloom has been called Racist against Arabs and other people of Middle-Eastern descent because of his book ''The Lucifer Principle''. {Link without Title} . However the criticsm misquotes Bloom in several respects. Bloom criticizes "certain Islamic societies" not all. He footnotes his quotes from the Koran and says Islam has its positive sides. He also says "Christians by the millions would take upon themselves the privilege of killing, torturing and raping those who weren't members of their triumphant creed." (page 176) EXTERNAL LINKS
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