Abstract
Ethnomethodology teaches that disciplines have specific ‘ways of knowing’. Logistic reasoning (LR) is a dynamic interdisciplinary approach to question-asking, question-answering, inferential reasoning and problem solving that, on occasion, may be at variance with disciplined inquiry. During the early-1980s, LR gave rise to a notion of autovirulence; to wit, transmissible and infectious secondary particles (i.e., usually small-RNAs) contributing to epigenetic disorders. LR now suggests a counterintuitive (albeit interdisciplinary) autovirulent etiology for the autism spectrum, schizophrenia and a plethora of other neuropsychiatric disorders. Epigenetic consequences of stress-induced Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) autovirulence (associated with the pathogenicity of two small-RNAs) effectively modify the genetic code. Molecular mimicry, and psychosomatic, psychoneuroimmunologic and autoimmune disorders are typical outcomes. Depending on titers of autovirulent secondary particles and fetal developmental cycles, their congenital (i.e., in utero) actions in the pregnant female can give rise to aneuploidies and the autism spectrum. These findings challenge traditional methods and approaches used in genetics, genomics, and other disciplines and professions. The LR approach also establishes parsimony in seemingly disparate reports, reveals new pathogenic biohazards, and points to experiments which should and should not be undertaken. Most important, LR provides a lens and roadmap for understanding roles of stress in the formation and alteration of beliefs, consciousness, reality, cognitive and social behavior, and consequences of war, terrorism and catastrophes – including stress-activated consequences surrounding September 11, 2001, the December 26, 2004 tsunami, and the “financial meltdown” in late-2008. Taken together, this report presents compelling arguments for anticipating chaos and pathogen analysis. The latter is a GPS-like discipline going beyond pathology and gedanken studies that is directed toward comprehensive studies focused on logistic and anticipatory reasoning, reverse engineering, and understanding causes, faults, errors and consequences of transmissible and infectious pathogens. Pathogen analysis is akin to fault, error and tolerance studies in engineering (e.g., understanding why a bridge collapses or an aircraft crashes). Regarding the former, our findings reveal a need for an ongoing and long-term National Stress Surveillance Project deploying anticipatory and look-ahead chaos detection tools metaphorically and analogically akin to GPS.