Can we scientifically prove the past and future ?

The term science has been broadened to mean anything that is being studied . We need to clarify what science really means if we want to get past generalizations. The scientific method proves ideas with real time tests. Sometimes an idea may sound like it is plausible, but when tests are run, the anticipated results don't occur. A real scientist will try another idea until he finds something that consistently works. An idea remains a speculation when there is no way to observe it in action, therefore the past and future are confined to history and speculation and cannot be scientifically proved.

What is the difference between speculation and fiction? A speculator has convinced himself that his idea is so plausible it must be fact and that his inability to prove it doesn't matter. A fiction writer knows he isn't dealing in facts and has nothing to prove. A speculator will insert bits of facts and science into his broad unprovable assumption hoping to make it look credible and justify his faith. Much of what is being called science today is simple minded speculation based in ideals rather than method.

We can scientifically examine a bowl of Cheerios as an example. The milk will contain detectable amounts of cheerio material in it. If we were to drop something into the milk, we would observe that perfect rings are formed. Based on this evidence we could conclude that Cheerios formed themselves out of the milk. The observations are scientific but the conclusion is speculation.