Since I'm a grad student in physical polymer chemistry and also have an interest in bioorganic chemistry, I tend to think of most biochemistry, physical chemistry, and even some chemical engineering questions as chemistry questions because chemistry can play a large role in these fields. Having said that, I'm not above calling certain bioorganic questions biochem (or, even in some cases, biology) questions for the purposes of meeting a packet distribution requirement. It strongly depends on the details of the question as well as on the nature of the other science questions in the packet. It also depends on whether I am stuck writing *all* the science questions in the packet. :) If my other questions were distributed evenly among physiology/medicine, math, computer science, physics, the Diels-Alder reaction (organic), and metal oxidation states (inorganic) and I had no biology questions, then I wouldn't have an objection to including a question on Watson-Crick base pairing of DNA (biology or bioorganic, depending on whether you're a biologist or a chemist) to satisfy a biology requirement. Of course, I rarely meet a chemistry-containing question that I don't like. YMMV. --Shannon Anthony wrote: <<It also begs the question of where biochemistry belongs appropriately belongs. The traditional line of demarcation has been between physical and biological sciences. Given that I know of several quizbowlers with a background in biochem, and that some of my non-quizbowl sources in physics think that biophysics will become more prominent, one wonders if these traditional boundaries are the best way of making a science distribution. Some have claimed that biochemistry and physical chemistry fall under chemistry because it is harder to write chem questions. >>
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