The place of zoology in the bio distribution

Old college threads.
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Nabonidus
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Re: The place of zoology in the bio distribution

Post by Nabonidus »

vinteuil wrote:
Nabonidus wrote: Those figures count double majors twice, and McGill obviously isn't representative of universities in general . . . but I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio of budding biologists to callow chemists was somewhere around 5:1.
I think the point Stephen Liu made in another thread is relevant: quizbowl is not 25% (or more??) "Communications" and like 75% economics just because those two majors predominate.
Agreed, but I think it's reasonable to imagine a curve with "ability to please quiz bowl players" on the Y scale and "similarity to what quiz bowl players study" on the X. I also think it's pretty safe to assume that, while quiz bowl demographics tend not to correspond to the majors you mention, we aren't currently sitting at the highest point on the curve.

That said, I have no idea how our typical distribution was developed and what empirical data went into the discussion (if any).
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Re: The place of zoology in the bio distribution

Post by Coldblueberry »

I did think about how there are a ton of Econ majors, etc.

However, how many undergrad-accessible answer lines and clues are there for Econ compared to the fields of Biology? I think it would be very, very easy to expand the distribution for Bio and still have very engaging answers and clues at the high school level, 'easy' college level, and regular college level. I'm not sure that would apply for Econ.

Communications isn't even a department/major/field at many places so I don't know what to say about that.
Justin
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Adventure Temple Trail
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Re: The place of zoology in the bio distribution

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Nabonidus wrote:Agreed, but I think it's reasonable to imagine a curve with "ability to please quiz bowl players" on the Y scale and "similarity to what quiz bowl players study" on the X. I also think it's pretty safe to assume that, while quiz bowl demographics tend not to correspond to the majors you mention, we aren't currently sitting at the highest point on the curve.

That said, I have no idea how our typical distribution was developed and what empirical data went into the discussion (if any).
Coldblueberry wrote:I did think about how there are a ton of Econ majors, etc.

However, how many undergrad-accessible answer lines and clues are there for Econ compared to the fields of Biology? I think it would be very, very easy to expand the distribution for Bio and still have very engaging answers and clues at the high school level, 'easy' college level, and regular college level. I'm not sure that would apply for Econ.
I wasn't there for the formation of the ACF distribution from the protoplanetary disk either, but my hunch tells me you're both right. We pick the distribution(s) we do because they strike some balance between many factors.

These include:
> relative extent to which players are exposed to that material (I say "exposed to" rather than "study" because in many categories it's not in a classroom setting -- many people read Lit-worthy books without taking classes on them).
> number of appropriate and accessible answers for that difficulty level (this often means that quantitative fields such as econ and math have a smaller share of the distro, since it's harder to succinctly translate problem-solving numerical knowledge into verbal clues)
> extent to which people actually enjoy a given category / that category reflects what quizbowl is about (the recent downplaying of geography since writers are less interested in writing it, the minimization of trash since a key purpose of quizbowl is to broaden academic horizons and too much trash dulls that).
Coldblueberry wrote:Communications isn't even a department/major/field at many places so I don't know what to say about that.
"Elite" private universities such as Princeton are not likely to have a Communications department, but from a nationwide perspective a massive number of colleges and universities -- a vast supermajority -- do have a Communications major and it is almost always very large and well-populated. I don't think that "is there a department for that?" is a great marker for carving up the quizbowl distribution in any case, though -- if only because interdisciplinary "Studies" majors and skills training programs have content which is easily parceled out into the category bins we have now (put African-American Studies content in lit, history, social science, fine arts, Your Choice, etc. depending on what sort of thing it is; put Electrical Engineering content in what quizbowl calls Physics or Other Science, etc. etc.). My suspicion about Communications in particular is that when it is academic enough to be asked / of a "media theory" bent, it fits best into Your Choice; we've also had "media theory" questions in social science to no objection from anyone.
Matt Jackson
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Cheynem
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Re: The place of zoology in the bio distribution

Post by Cheynem »

I agree that comm theory/media studies should go into social science.
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