is etymology a science?

Yes. Soft science. Technically, and in view of demarcation, social science; linguistics.

To give some scope, code cracking is about mathematics, etymology is anthropomorphic. They're similar.

For example, Latine implicat totum. Latin ties all. The middle word is root for implication, the last total.

When you have words like this, the evidence is made of letters, like an equation. It's not speculative.

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Quoting tim wood

The Christian Bible seems an example par excellence. Lots of the words can be rendered, but once rendered, readers suppose the modern meanings are accurate, and of course to the extent that the words are modern, they are not accurate. Significance and meaning are lost.

I was thinking something similar. It seems we have more evidence of evolution than we do evidence that Christians truly understand what the Bible means lol

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Quoting Gregory

Gregory
968
So.. what is the relationship between cracking codes (like in wartime) and tracing words throughout history? Where do we get our senses of probability when it comes to history and especially etymology? How can one say with certainty "it's unlikely this word did not precede this other one"?

We cannot say almost anything with certainty...
...but with regard to etymology and "whether this word preceded this other" can be determined by etymologists simply by looking at where and when a word was first used.

Some atheists suggest that the word atheist means without a "belief" in any gods because the word "theist" means "with a belief in a god"...and the prefix "a" means without.

BUT the word atheist came into use in the English language 100 years BEFORE theist...so that derivation cannot be.

Just an example.