In Msg 7911, DavidLevinson writes: << ... Let's try one from Chicago's pack which I thought one of the best of DeepBench "11. Tossup: When he visited a phrenologist at age 11, this future Nobel laureate was told that he was clueless mathematically and had no respect for property rights.** ... Answer: Ronald Coase ">> In response, koszul writes: << I have less of problem with the Coase tossup with regard to the first objection, but I could see it confusing and infuriating a Coase expert, who should be answering a question on Coase if it was well written. Even if it doesn't matter most of the time, underestimating the knowledge of those who hear a question unfairly penalizes the real expert when a question in his niche comes up, which is a shame. >> I admit that I (probably in common with the majority of readers here) had never heard of Ronald Coase until the name came up in this discussion. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that Coase spent most of his career at the same university as the team that wrote the question -- but I'm sure that happens a lot when Chicago writes about Nobel laureates in Economics. Anyway, as it happens, his autobiography at the Nobel website ( <a href=http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1991/coase-autobio.html target=new>http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1991/coase-autobio.html</a> ) actually goes into a lot of detail about his visit to a phrenologist at age 11. The "lie" in the question was about exactly what the phrenologist told him. In this case, a Coase expert who knew about Coase's childhood would probably enjoy the joke in this "lie", but I'm sure it went over everyone else's heads. That's a shame, because the facts of Coase's visit to a phrenologist are interesting, but the players who didn't know about it never got to learn it, being told that the whole story as presented was just a lie. I was thinking about what precedents we have in quiz bowl for this idea of the "lie". Rule VI.14 of the Michigan Memorandum ( <a href=http://www.umich.edu/~uac/mac/rules/memorandum.html target=new>http://www.umich.edu/~uac/mac/rules/memorandum.html</a> ) states: << In an effort to make questions creative and colorful, writers often speculate about motives, ideas, and thoughts of the question subject, or offer interesting interpretations of limited factual data. Such coloration, however, often makes questions factually inaccurate. Any "creativity" which butchers factual accuracy for cleverness isn't worthy of the label. A creative question will express information in a different, surprising, or thoughtful way, but not in a way that renders the information absurd or wrong. If speculation will make a question more interesting, it must be noted as speculation with qualifiers like "perhaps." >> Obviously the point of inserting a "lie" into each Deep Bench packet was exactly this: an effort to make questions more creative and colorful. However, I agree with the sentiments expressed in Rule VI.14, that there are better ways to do it, using real facts and ironic juxtapositions of them. It is possible, without having a "lie" rule, to include clever lies in quiz bowl questions, as long as they are cited as such. For example, in a packet for which Anthony de Jesus sought critiques from the community two years ago, Tossup 30 (see <a href=http://home.cwru.edu/~ard/1_tu.htm target=new>http://home.cwru.edu/~ard/1_tu.htm</a> ) is about _Triumph of the Will_ and contains the clue that this film, "according to the Onion's Our Dumb Century also won Best Picture for a 4th straight year at the Nazi-Occupied 1944 Cannes Film Festival." I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but still, if you say you're quoting from _The Onion_ or _1066 And All That_, then the insertion of a lie does not break any existing rules. The problem occurs when you make up your own lie. I still think that Rule VI.14 provides the best solution: when speculati
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