" They believed that in the Great Flood shells all over the world were left behind as the water receded."

Oh right...*grin*... at steep angles and in random patches. I think that Dick's story is better more interesting.

"Incidentally I'm not sure what premise this thread is built upon. "

Simply that Pete & I have been discussing these things for 2-3 years, and several threads started for other purposes have been co-opted by this topic. I just thought I'd see if we could confine it a bit.

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"Seems like "philosophy lingo" is peeping out of your last post, Bill D."

You noticed! Guilty as charged. I do that in semi-automatic mode when I detect ambiguity in the verbiage,,, (eeek..he's babbling again.)

I also can't easily shorten what I want to say... like the guy who said: "I don't have time to write a short paper!"
I had a professor who sometimes taught a 2 hours graduate level class, and was still always surprised and frustrated when time ran out. Every line of thought led to something else. That what philosophy was about.