Silas Deane Essay, Research Paper

Mysterious Death of Silas Deane

The authors of “The Strange Death of Silas Deane: The Problem of Selecting

Evidence.”, James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle explore the skill of

selecting evidence. The two authors show how to select evidence in the case of

the death of Silas Deane to answer the question of why Deane would commit

suicide.

Silas Deane is an official of the United States government that gets into

trouble while in Europe. While in Europe, Silas makes a few mistakes that anger

many people (pg xv ,p. 4,5 ), but he decides that it is best to return to

America. On the voyage home, his ship is delayed because of a storm and he

becomes ill. The circumstances surrounding Silas Deane’s death are very

mysterious, Why would he commit suicide if he was so up beat ? There is two

possible explanations that are given, one is that Deane is down on his luck and

commits suicide and the other is of murder.

Because of the conflicting reports, it is hard for anybody to say what

happened, so one must look deeper. To find the truth one must look in between

the lines to find the truth, and the use of inference comes into play.

The authors hint that the use of inference is key to selecting evidence in the

death of Silas Deane and drawing conclusions. Without the use inference, one

would become stuck and search aimlessly for answers. Still the use of inference

may not be enough and one must wait for new evidence to come up in order to find

an answer.