We do have a basis for rejecting the hypothesis that there is an intelligence "behind the scenes" that is imitating a non-teleological process. It totally untes

We do have a basis for rejecting the hypothesis that there is an intelligence "behind the scenes" that is imitating a non-teleological process. It totally untestable and does not make useful predictions about the world, so you can't do anything with it scientifically. All you can do is say "hey, it could be true" and that's the end of the conversation. Science is not about saying which hypotheses could possibly be true, it is about determining which hypotheses are likely to be true given the evidence and which are unlikely, and where possible quantifying that likeliness (via statistics). A hypothesis that can neither be supported nor refuted by any empirical evidence has no place in science. This isn't to say that we rule such a hypothesis out as impossible, but just that science has nothing useful to say on such a hypothesis. To go to your analogy of determining whether something is a source of random numbers, of course if you only make your decision based on the first 10 million numbers you cannot distinguish between a true RNG and a source that provides 10 million random numbers and then all zeros. Bringing that analogy back to the hypothetical intelligence guiding the universe, if you only look at the first 13 billion years or so (current best estimate of the age of the universe), you can't tell the difference between a truly non-teleological universe and a universe guided by an intelligence that intentionally makes the universe act like a non-teleological one for the first 13 billion years and then starts doing something totally different (e.g. causes a scientifically unexplainable apocalypse in 2012). But what's the point of saying this? You're effectively saying that absolutely anything could happen at any time, because there aren't really any fundamental laws, just the will of a hidden intelligence that can do whatever it wants to whenever it wants to. In summary, read this comic and replace "string theory" with "hidden intelligence guiding the universe": http://xkcd.com/171/ http://xkcd.com/171/