CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY SEASONAL CLIMATE FORECASTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Use of seasonal climate forecasts is a rapidly evolving area. Effective research and application of climate forecasts require close cooperation between scientists in diverse disciplines and decision makers. Successful collaboration requires all players to at least partially understand each other's perspectives. Issues associated with seasonal forecasts, through a selected review of both physical and social sciences literature, is presented. Our hope is that the review will improve research in this area by stimulating further collaborations.climate forecasts, review, value of information, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, D80, D81, O30, Q00,

Interview with Father James Martin

In May 2011, the Ignatian Faculty Scholars at Regis University conducted a Skype interview with Father James Martin, S. J., author of The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything. The Scholars had used Father Martin’s book as a text for their year of study, which focused on Ignatian Spirituality, the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, and teaching and learning at a Jesuit university. The interview was transcribed and is printed below. Father Martin reflects on the book, and responds to questions about the book itself, about finding God in all learners, and about the Church

Nominalism In Mathematics - Modality And Naturalism

I defend modal nominalism in philosophy of mathematics - under which quantification over mathematical ontology is replaced with various modal assertions - against two sources of resistance: that modal nominalists face difficulties justifying the modal assertions that figure in their theories, and that modal nominalism is incompatible with mathematical naturalism. Shapiro argues that modal nominalists invoke primitive modal concepts and that they are thereby unable to justify the various modal assertions that figure in their theories. The platonist, meanwhile, can appeal to the set-theoretic reduction of modality, and so can justify assertions about what is logically possible through an appeal to what exists in the set-theoretic hierarchy. In chapter one, I illustrate the modal involvement of the major modal nominalist views (Chihara\u27s Constructibility Theory, Field\u27s fictionalism, and Hellman\u27s Modal Structuralism). Chapter two provides an analysis of Shapiro\u27s criticism, and a partial response to it. A response is provided in full in chapter three, in which I argue that reducing modality does not provide a means for justifying modal assertions, vitiating the accusation that modal nominalists are particularly burdened by their inability to justify modal assertions. Chapter four discusses Burgess\u27s naturalistic objection that nominalism is unscientific. I argue that Burgess\u27s naturalism is inadequately resourced to expose nominalism (modal or otherwise) as unscientific in a way that would compel a naturalist to reject nominalism. I also argue that Burgess\u27s favored moderate platonism is also guilty of being unscientific. Chapter five discusses some objections derived from Maddy\u27s naturalism, one according to which modal nominalism fails to affirm or support mathematical method, and a second according to which modal nominalism fails to be contained or accommodated by mathematical method. Though both objections serve as evidence that modal nominalism is incompatible with Maddy\u27s naturalism, I argue that Maddy\u27s naturalism is implausibly strong and that modal nominalism is compatible with forms of naturalism that relax the stronger of Maddy\u27s naturalistic principles