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The Life Science fields of study in which scholars can specialize are... strange. The choices are bioengineering, biology, botany, ecology, genetics, xenobiology, or zoology. Problem is, botany, zoology, and presumably xenobiology are all subcategories of biology. Also, the boundary between bioengineering and genetics seems pretty blurry. Only ecology seems to have a clearly defined niche. Since there's no bonus for picking a more narrow focus, is there any reason to ever pick a sub-field of biology?
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I mean, I agree it is odd that they add the macro fields alongside their various specializations without differentiating them. Honestly, I'm not sure why you would ever not specialize. Sure, I tell people I'm a psychologist for ease of reference. In reality, my training is in cognitive psychology. Specifically, memory. Specifically, memory and decision making. Specifically, law-based applications of...
You get the idea.
I don't really think it makes too much a difference, mechanically speaking.
Oh, also, the relationship between bioengineering and genetics is kind of a square-rectangle type thing. I.e. all genetics is bioengineering but not all bioengineering is genetics. For example, biomedical engineering refers to the creation of technologies to manipulate cellular structures (like laser for the eradication of cancer cells, or more commonly for the identification of same), and other applications of bioengineering might be the creation of organic ships, like Shirren-based models. Cell-cultures and the like might also be considered bioengineering.
Genetics on the other hand specifically covers the direct manipulation of genetic structures and codes. That's kind of a subset of bioengineering, certainly, but on a much more focused scale.
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I'm with you on the real life examples. No one is a "biologist," and everyone is a specialist. But because there's no bonus for picking the more specialized options, it looks like Scholar's three choices are basically biology, bioengineering, and ecology.
Honestly, I think the best solution is to remove biology and xenobiology from the list.
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I had the same train of thought when I was making my first scholar. However, the simplest explanation (for me) was sort-of the reverse: The inclusions of the other sub-fields as separate choices implied that the "biology" option was intended to only cover what wasn't already a different field, in this case pretty much just humanoids.
Biology - humanoid life
Botany - plant life
Zoology - animal life
Xenobiology - non-DNA\RNA based life (As I understand the Wikipedia article's definition, this would have the potential for such a significant difference from life as we know it to nearly be a macro field itself. Granted, that article is the extent of my knowledge)
Definitely agree that there could be some overlap between these fields, though, and a lot of overlap between bioengineering and genetics.
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I like to think of it as the amount/type of overlap each field has. So biology covers the inner workings of any creature, whereas xenobiology might cover the inner workings of alien creatures and their ecology (but only in xenoplanet environments). Genetics could cover DNA stuff and the environment where it evolved, whereas bioengineering would cover DNA stuff and who created it/how it was created in a lab. Zoology could cover ecology, genetics, and biology of animals, and botony could cover xeno-and “normal” plant studies, including their genetics.
Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Theoretically chemistry should be involved in botony and biology, and one might argue physics is at the heart of all science. For example, why choose astrophysics over physics? Because an astrophysicist might not know about quantum interactions, but might know some geology by studying the composition of comets.