In Gorilla's Death, Critics Blame Mother, Cincinnati Zoo

[Orrex]

77. Perhaps you unfamiliar with "imply" versus "infer"

Okay, then it's stupid/specious/disingenuous because you obviously knew there were more than 2 options but you presented only 2 as if that's all there was.

No, I absolutely did not. I was positing a choice between two options, and I certainly was not in any way suggesting that those are the only two options. My choice to exclude them from the hypothetical does not imply that they don't exist in reality.

Well, if you don't see any "implying" or "insinuating" there well to use your words "that's your problem, not mine". You knew there were more than 2 options but you purposely left others out.

I implied nothing of the sort. It appears that you have inferred that, but you have inferred incorrectly. That's your problem, not mine.

"If global warming is not occurring, then. . ." is a hypothetical that references an untrue reality which is what yours did and which is what I meant to say rather than what I wrote. (In other words I concede that my wording re hypotheticals was off/wrong). Not that such utterances can be without value, for ex: "if global warming is not occurring then we would expect. .. ."

That's actually a terrific example, so I'm gratified to see that understand how hypothetical examples work after all.

When the hypothetical is proposed, the listener is free to reject or accept it, no harm/no foul. Here's my statement again:

If the option is alive in a cage or dead in the back of a poacher's truck, I'd say that the cage is a better option.

You reject that if/then formulation; so be it. You apparently identify the first clause as false; so be it. You are saying, in effect, "the choice is not between alive in a cage or dead in the back of a poacher's truck." So be it.

But I'm sorry--that doesn't mean that it's stupid/specious/disingenuous; it means only that you reject it as false, because you are unwilling to posit the choice between only those two options.

It also doesn't mean--in any way--that I'm implying that only those two options exist in reality, and I frankly see no way to interpret the statement that way. What I am stating is that between Option A and Option B, Option A is preferable. You may feel that Option B is preferable, and that's fine, because we can certainly disagree. But our disagreement doesn't mean that the hypothetical is specious/stupid/disingenuous.