[gjm11]

Again, you are not fooling anyone when you insinuate things and then act offended when someone actually responds to the insinuations. [EDITED to fix a typo]

The past is not outside the domain of scientific knowledge. (Unless you refuse to call something "knowledge" unless it is known absolutely for certain, in which case the situation is much simpler: there is no such thing as knowledge, scientific or otherwise.)

The way science works is: you have a bunch of observations, you come up with theories that attempt to explain them, you try hard to refute those theories by thinking of tests/observations/... that will give different results depending on what theory (if any) is right, and you try hard to look for alternative theories to explain the observations, and the situation you hope for -- which happens very frequently -- is that you have one not-too-complicated theory whose predictions match the observations well, and that despite extensive efforts no one has found a theory that does as well without being much more complicated (e.g., by "baking in" the actual observed results), and then that theory is the one you provisionally treat as "true" until that situation stops obtaining (e.g. because someone found a better theory, or it fails to account for new observations).

(yesyesyes, this is a simplified account, but I claim it captures the essence of how science works)

You will notice that nothing in that paragraph forbids those theories to say things about the past.

Which is just as well, because the very most primitive scientific activity possible, namely making and reporting a single observation, is necessarily about the past. Suppose I measure the temperature of a liquid by immersing a digital temperature probe in it and looking at the output. It takes a bit of time for the sensor in the probe to equilibrate with the liquid around it. It takes a bit of time for the electronics in the probe to do their thing. It takes a bit of time for the light from the display to reach my eyes. It takes a bit of time for my brain to process that and turn it into an actual number. By the time I write "115.2 degrees C" in my notebook, the actual liquid-being-at-that-temperature is several seconds in the past.

But I'm still happy writing the number down, because by far the most likely explanation for my current state of "thinking I have just read the display as saying 115.2 degrees C" is that a few seconds ago the temperature of the liquid was about 115.2 degrees C.

Of course it's always possible that I've suffered some strange brain aberration, or that the probe is malfunctioning, or that an angel reached down and interfered with the experiment. Or that some currently-unknown physical phenomenon invalidates the way the temperature probe works, for this particular liquid in this particular situation. Everything in science is provisional. But the fact that something's in the past doesn't in itself make it more provisional. And, while those exotic alternative scenarios are possible, they aren't likely: strange brain aberrations are thankfully rare, lab equipment usually either works or fails in obvious ways, miracles are rare if they ever happen at all. So we generally do OK to ignore those scenarios until plenty of actual evidence for them turns up.

So, anyway, what of your example? In any actually plausible version of the scenario where one human being makes a statue that's later seen by another, that other human being is going to find plenty of evidence of other intelligent beings who might have made it. (E.g., to be excessively literal about how you set up the scenario, if I observe that statue then I am going to be aware of having seen many many other statues before all of which I have good reason to think were made by people.)

So if you want hypothetical-me not to think it plausible that the statue was made by an intelligent being, even though in fact you made it, you're going to have to go to great lengths to erase from the world -- or at least the portion of it that I get to see -- all evidence of other people who might have made the statue. And it's going to have to be a hypothetical-me that lacks all the real-world knowledge I have involving other people. And, well, if hypothetical-me is looking at a world from which all evidence of other intelligent beings, apart from that statue itself, has been carefully erased, then I am not sure it's much of a gotcha to say "aha, your so-called scientific approach will never discover the intelligent designer here!". If you falsify the evidence competently enough, you can indeed get someone to believe something false; how exactly is that supposed to indicate that they're doing it wrong?

[explaininjs]

It would seem we are in agreement. Your science cannot find the designer if the designer does not wish to be found by your science. That doesn’t mean we can say they do or do not exist. Thus: creationism and evolutionism, the two sides of the coin.

[gjm11]

We can, if the evidence has the right shape, say: Either there is no god, or some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us to try to make us draw wrong conclusions.

The existence of that caveat is not peculiar to the question of the origins of the universe, or life, or humans; nor is it peculiar to questions involving gods.

You do a bunch of physics experiments and think hard and conclude: electric charge is made out of little bits and the size of each one is so-and-so-much. Strictly, you should add "or some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us".

You find your spouse in bed with someone else and conclude that they are unfaithful. Strictly, you should add "or some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us". Er, perhaps I should have chosen a term other than "screwing with", sorry.

Someone's accused of murder and they go to trial. The prosecution pulls out eyewitness reports of the murder, emails from the accused saying how they were planning to kill the victim, etc. The defence has nothing but handwaving. The jury finds them guilty. Strictly, they should add "or some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us".

You can add that caveat to everything: literally any conclusion we draw by any means could be invalidated if some omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately trying to get us to draw the wrong conclusions.

But we don't, in fact, bother adding that caveat all the time, because there would be no point, and because to most of us it doesn't in fact seem very plausible that an omnipotent or near-omnipotent being is deliberately screwing with us. (But of course maybe we just feel that way because said being is messing with our minds.)

And, of course, it's especially self-defeating to offer this sort of objection to science specifically when it conflicts with revealed religion. Because if you're taking the "God is deliberately trying to deceive us" hypothesis seriously, you'd better take it just as seriously when it's applied to your religion's scriptures, or its allegedly inspired prophets, or any personal revelations you may think you've had, or any of the other specifically religious sources that religious people get beliefs from.

(Does the evidence have the right shape? All the above is much less relevant if in fact the available evidence points in the direction of, say, a 6-day creation 6000-ish years ago. Or, more modestly, in the direction of there being a benevolent god who intervenes in the world from time to time. It looks to me as if the evidence fits much better with a no-god hypothesis than with any sort of theism I know about, other than versions of theism that deliberately make the same predictions about the world as atheism does. Obviously I might be misinterpreting the evidence, or seeing a misleading subset of it, or something; but note that those are entirely different arguments from the "well, you wouldn't be able to tell if God were deliberately trying to mislead you" argument you've settled on.)

[explaininjs]

Why are you assigning malice? Just because the omnipresent being designed things a particular way but wishes to be known on faith rather than an explicit name tag doesn’t mean he’s “screwing with us”, as you seem so want to repeat.

Frankly I don’t even know what point you’re trying to make. I was very clear in my goal for this thread, and it has very clearly been achieved to any onlooker. If you’re too deep in your argument to see it… yes, precisely.

[gjm11]

I'm not "assigning malice". I'm just observing that the hypothesis you're pushing here is of an omnipotent being going out of its way to make us draw wrong conclusions. You can call that malice or benevolence or caprice or anything you like; I'm not particularly concerned with the motives of this hypothetical deceptive superbeing. But the hypothesis is of a deceptive superbeing, one that goes out of its way to have the universe not look as if there's a superbeing in charge of it.

(At least to whatever extent your statue example is meant to reflect the actual world. As I said: if in that example you want me not to conclude that the statue was likely made by an intelligent being even though in fact it was, you will need to go out of your way to hide from me all the evidence there would naturally be of intelligent potentially-statue-making beings like yourself.)

If you don't like the specific phrase "screwing with us" then by all means substitute something like "trying to make us draw wrong conclusions".

It seems to me that whether something is clear "to any onlooker" is a thing for the onlookers to decide.

[explaininjs]

The evidence is clear to anyone with eyes: the intricately designed statue. It should be obvious to anyone that it was created, as it was for millennia across the entire world. It’s only after centuries of forced re-education that people began to think the dust randomly settled in the shape of a beautiful statue.

[gjm11]

I'm not sure whether your statue is meant as an analogy for the universe as a whole, or life on earth, or what. But whatever specific thing you have in mind, it's obviously false that "only after centuries of forced re-education" that people began to think ... well, anything, actually. Because then what motivated the "forced re-education" in the first place?