An effect preceding a cause (in time) is called non-causality. Non-causality has been discussed at length in the scientific community. To propose that non-causality is possible, tends to make a the very definitions of the words “effect” and “cause” a paradox. If you define the word "effect" as: “Something that inevitably follows an antecedent such as a cause or agent“, then stating that an effect has occurred prior to its cause makes the effect not an effect at all. Similarly, if you define the word "cause" as: “Something that brings about or results in an effect”, then stating that a cause has occurred subsequent to an effect makes the cause not a cause. The last serious scientific discussion of non-causality was started by Steven Hawking, when he theorized that matter was destroyed, when it entered a black hole. Scientists had, previously, believed that the matter was not destroyed; instead, the matter was added the mass of the black hole. Even this subtle loss of mass↔energy implied a loss of information about the universe that tended to break down the cause - effect temporal order of the universe. Scientists tried for many years to prove Steven wrong. Steven, himself, later discovered theory to be wrong and published a short paper that retracted the theory by stating that the information about the matter was smeared across the event horizon of the black hole.