The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, used this argument in a story called The Adventure of Silver Blaze. While reviewing the evidence of the case with Watson and Scotland Yard Detective Gregory, Holmes raises "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory replies "The dog did nothing in the night-time." and Holmes points out that "That was the curious incident." Holmes had deduced that the dog made to noise because there was not stranger to bark at. The horse, Silver Blaze, had been stolen by someone the dog knew. Holmes built his argument on the silence of the dog and solved the case. Another example of the argument from silence is the assertion that Marco Polo did not go to China. His travel journals do not mention the Great Wall of China and some people argue that anyone who explored China would mention something as significant as the Great Wall.
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3) Critical Thinking: Testing which ideas are true > Anatomy of an Argument > Inductive Logic Arguments >