ISSN 1948â6596 news and update update Stemming âignorance creepâ in paleoecology and biogeography The continued success and relevance of any scienâ tific field depends on critical examination of its foundational knowledge. A recent perspective in Quaternary Science Reviews by Steve Jackson (U. of Wyoming) highlights the different ways that knowledge is formed, recognized, and then lost in paleoecology (Jackson 2012). Although he was writing for a specific audienceâpaleoecologistsâ his call for greater efforts to acknowledge and combat âignorance creepâ applies to all researchâ ers, including biogeographers. Jackson (2012) uses an unlikely pairing of quotes by Donald Rumsfeld and Henry David Thoâ reau to highlight the scope of our knowledge about any given discipline. He presents an episteâ mological framework for scientific understanding: knowledge versus uncertainty on the one hand, and cognizance versus ignorance on the other. These contrasts generate four categories: known knowns and known unknowns, i.e., knowledge and uncertainty of which we are cognizant; and unâ known knowns and unknown unknowns, knowlâ edge and uncertainty of which we are ignorant. The focus of Jackson (2012) is on the oftenâ ignored category that arises from this classificaâ tion schemeâunknown knowns. Unknown knowns include âthe hidden and unquestioned assumptions that underlie a discipline, the things so seemingly obvious that they are beyond quesâ tion or reflection, all the things that are routinely taken for granted...â (p. 3). Jackson is particularly concerned about âignorance creepâ, the process that converts âknownsâ into âunknownsâ and arâ gues for increasing attention to forward models to identify and combat ignorance creep within paâ leoecology. Forward models trace the mechanisâ tic processes along the path from the target variâ able to the proxy used to measure it. Jackson arâ gues that the construction of forward models serves two purposes: 1) to make processes and assumptions explicit, minimizing ignorance creep, and 2) to allow quantification of uncertainty, thereby assessing the strength of resulting inferâ ences. Jackson uses woodrat middens as a study system to provide a worked example of forward model construction for paleoecological inference. The forward model for this system starts with a variable of interest, regional vegetation, and outâ lines the path through data collection and analysis to the resulting inferences a researcher might make about regional vegetation. In between those two points lie a set of assumptions, observaâ tions, and models, dealing with the ultimate source of the data (the regional vegetation), the animal vector bringing information about the source into the middens (decisions and assumpâ tions made by or about the woodrats), issues with diagenesis (physical, chemical, and biological procâ esses that transform the samples over time), and finally the set of analytical and inferential issues that arise in field, lab, and computer work. This forward model (and most forward models that paleoecological studies would generate) essenâ tially recapitulates the field of taphonomy. Taâ phonomy is a component of paleoecology that studies how the processes of preservation affect the information found in the fossil record (Behrensmeyer et al. 2000). However, when deâ fined more broadly, every field grapples with âtaphonomicâ processes, whether in the field or lab, that affect inferences made from the raw data. Every field has, at the very least, source isâ sues and analytical and inferential issues; they may or may not have vector or diagenesis issues. Jackson argues that forward models are important when data, originally collected for one purpose, are used for another. Distribution modâ eling is a good example of this. Often, the original data (e.g., occurrences of individuals at particular localities) were collected for a very specific purâ pose: to determine some aspect of the ecology and evolution of a particular group at a particular location. Today, however, data collected for disâ parate purposes, with different collection methâ odologies, are aggregated to understand a new set of questions, at much broader spatial and temâ poral scales (Boakes et al. 2010): What was the frontiers of biogeography 4.3, 2012 â © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society