<< This is sort of missing the point. Economics majors, who have a right to get economics questions first, study graphs and equations, not trivia about the biographies of economists. This sort of question, except for the part which actually defines his theorem (and does so fairly quickly, causing a buzzer race among anyone who knows it) rewards people who know trivia, not economics. It's the equivalent of counting yet another "He was apprenticed to a bookbinder" <buzz> "Faraday" question as physics. It screws people who know the actual topic in favor of people who know biography, which is its own, separate topic and one of extremely overstated importance in quizbowl right now. >> Maybe packets should include a separate biography distribution? I really enjoy cool facts about people, although I'll grant you that the "bookbinder" clue has been way overused for Faraday. I think biography questions offer interesting insights into the lives of interesting people and in my opinion, it would be a shame if people stopped writing them. If instead people wrote interesting and original biography questions, the problem of overused and stale clues would be resolved. << As always, in my opinion, but I think everyone's been frustratingly beaten to a question in their field by a biography/trivia expert and agrees with me at least a little here...>> In my epxerience, either the clue is so stale that there is a buzzer race off the first sentence or the clue is not nearly revealing enough for someone to get it just from that. Most of the time, it's the latter case. As a physics major, I know a little bit about the work of individual physicists, so once they start listing accomplishments and discoveries, I feel like I'm on solid ground. I contend that poorly written biography questions that employ overused clues are the problem, not the idea of biography questions themselves.
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