Re: "Proving scientific theories," by Billy Kitchens, Letter to the Editor April 24. A common tool used by psuedo-intellectuals is sophistry. Sophistry is a plausible but misleading or fallacious argument. It is often meant to define the question in such a way it cannot be answered. A perfect example of this is Mr. Kitchen's statement "...life coming from non-living matter is not natural phenomena and beginning with theory alone does not get you past it." Life began on this planet some 3 to 4 billion years ago. It started out with simple single-celled things and became more and more complex over time. The fossil record is beyond legitimate dispute on this. Our science has determined that no part of us is made up of anything other than what exists in nature. That is, at our basic level, we are made up of non-living matter. We do not yet fully understand the process of how this "non-living" matter comes together to be "life," but the search goes on. Therefore, to argue that "...life coming from non-living matter is not natural phenomena..." is pure sophistry. I'm not telling Mr. Kitchens to believe anything. I frankly don't care what he believes. He is like the tobacco industry when they were saying over and over that there was no "proof" that smoking was bad for one's health, and no matter what the evidence he, like them, is going to believe what he wants to believe — and that is just fine with me.