What is Evidence?

I am digging this thread back up because I would like to ask a question of its kind participants, namely, what, if it is, is the difference between evidences and premises? What qualities, if any, do they share? What qualities, if any, distinguish them?I think if we can come to some sort of an agreement on this issue, it should be possible for me to turn back to the main question with a better sense of direction.Jon(btw: did the post form's font change from monospaced to plain sans-serif?)

---

[O]ur tiny half-kilogram rock just compeltely fucked up our starship. - Rahvin

Yes, I understand the textbook definition of "premise"; I was looking for something a little bit more in-depth than a cut-n'-paste from page vi of the Philosophy 101 coursebook.Maybe that was out of line; what I mean to say is that the main thing I am concerned with is in describing how it is a premise goes about doing its job of supporting/refuting a given conclusion. How do we figure out if an evidence supports our premise? In other words, how is it that evidence goes about doing its job of supporting/refuting a given premise?So, to rephrase my question so as to avoid more silly replies: How do premises go about supporting/refuting whatever it is they support/refute? How do evidences go about supporting/refuting whatever it is they support/refute? How are the ways they do these things similar? How do the ways they do these things differ?Looking forward to some good answers Jon

---

[O]ur tiny half-kilogram rock just compeltely fucked up our starship. - Rahvin

Anyone care to participate?

---

[O]ur tiny half-kilogram rock just compeltely fucked up our starship. - Rahvin

Okay. Good. We now have established how premises support their conclusion, but how, then, do they prove their conclusion? I think they can only do this by being proven themselves, which requires something external, no?If unproven, they still permit a valid argument, and therein lies the problem that I think we need evidence to solve. Without evidence, it seems, there is no way to actually find out whether a valid argument is also sound or whether it is simply just valid. Dr. A. gave a nice example: This argument is valid and its premises support their conclusion; BUT, they do not prove it, or so it seems to me, because the premises are not proven true, and the argument thus unsound.How do we prove premises true? Is this the purpose of evidence? If so, how does evidence prove premises true? We are satisfied, I think, with how premises support a conclusionyou laid that out very nicely, thank youbut we still get the problem that a valid argument can have an unproven conclusion if one of its premises is unproven, or correct me if I have erred.Thank you,
Jon

---

[O]ur tiny half-kilogram rock just compeltely fucked up our starship. - Rahvin