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    reg

    arded as no more than a fanciful metaphor. Evolution is thought to

    produce individuals who are designed to relentlessly pursue their own

    reproductive success. Society is merely the byproduct of individual

    striving and should not be regarded as an organism in its own right.

    Even individuals can be decomposed into selfish genes whose only

    purpose is to replicate themselves.

    It is a mark of Howard Bloom's independence of thought that he

    resisted the extreme reductionism that pervades modern evolutionary

    biology. He believes that the Leviathan, or society as an organism, is not

    a fanciful metaphor but an actual product of evolution. The Darwinian

    struggle for existence has taken place among societies, as well as among

    individuals within societies. We do strive as individuals but we are also

    part of something larger than ourselves, with a complex physiology and

    mental life that we carry out but only dimly understand. That is the

    vision of evolution and human behavior found in The Lucifer Principle

    and at the moment it can be found no where else.

    When Howard Bloom wrote The Lucifer Principle, he studied

    numerous developments taking place within the halls of academe, but

    was unaware of others.  Evolution is increasingly being studied as a

    process that operates on a hierarchy of units. Even individual organisms

    are higher level units, composed of parts that were themselves

    free-living organisms in the distant past. Truly organismic societies have

    evolved in insects and even some recently discovered mammal species.

    As for ourselves, human society may turn out to be far more organismic

    than the vast majority of evolutionary biologists imagined only a few

    years ago. These discoveries are unfolding within the scientific

    community, and many of them have been anticipated by Bloom.

    Scientists and other Academicians might find themselves treading a path

    forged by an outsider.

    As a scientist who has been developing a hierarchical view of

    evolution from within academia, I have learned from Howard Bloom

    and value him as a fellow traveler. I do not agree with everything he

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