By material reductionism I mean that we believe that we can explain things by starting at say subatomic particles, which form atoms which form molecules and compounds which form living beings which form societies and that there is a deterministic description of how we go from one level to the next. In reality though we cannot proceed from the microscopic world to the macroscopic road without giving up deterministic knowledge and resorting to averaging. This is the second law of thermodynamics. It cannot be got at by deterministic methods, it only results from averaging, yet it is an accurate description of reality.

The interesting thing is that there has to be an imposition by humans that creates an averaging of the deterministic information of the microscopic world in order for the macroscopic world to exist according to the present known laws.

In regards to evolution then, it is highly likely then, that we cannot deterministically describe how evolution came to act as it came to, but this is not a limitation. It is rather consistent with the behavior and description of our immediate physical world around us. In fact, if you want to go a bit out on a limb, one could argue that evolution results in selection for organisms that average deterministic information because it is advantageous for existence as opposed to one that cannot average information and thereby create no concept of a physical reality upon which an organism could begin to survive and improve.

An organism that only deals in deterministic information and not the averages would not advance any further than random particle motions with no organization.

First, I’m in total agreement about the limits of language, one of the main problems being that no matter how many words we define, or how specific they are, they are still just coded messages used to describe personal perspectives, that in the best of times can only be mostly understood.

As for the language in the report I cited, in my thinking the use term “allow” was subordinate to the use of the term “mistake”. As you say, a filter can’t make a mistake, it works, or it’s broken. But the researcher used such a term.

In the context that you speak of, which I understand as the context of Intelligent Design (“If there is a God who created the laws of the universe…”), the terms are quite at home.