Sure it can. Tonight, if it is not too cold, look up into the sky. You're looking at hundred, thousands, possibly millions of years into the past. With a telescope you can see billions of years into the past.
You’re making a uniformitarian assumption with that.
Time and speed of light are constant? Always were? How do you know?
Well done, Gunny. I’ve been enjoying the night display of Orion and Jupiter chasing him across the sky the last several weeks. Betelgeuse and his friends are so far away, that it really makes a person stare in awe at the wonder of nature and physics. And we are ONLY gazing upon our own galaxy. Beyond are the galaxy clusters, local groups, super groups. We don’t know anything yet. Religion doesn’t diminish our quest for knowledge.
Great. Just as soon as you discover a perfectly placed mirror planet that will allow you to see into the Earth’s past, you might be able to actually observe a few of the things that paleontologists and geologists speculate about. You still wouldn’t be able to conduct scientific experiments in the past, but you’d be halfway to actual science.