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Perhaps you can distill the point of the article?

I'll try freedumb2003. It seems to me the basic points that Mikulecky (after Rosen) raises in this excerpt come down to:

(1) A complex system falls outside the formalism called the Newtonian Paradigm. Yet increasingly we are aware that biological organisms are preeminently complex systems.
(2) "...complex systems contain semantic aspects which cannot be reduced to syntax." By semantic or semiotic aspects, he means meaningful (for the order of the organism) information presumably of an "inversely-causal metainformation" type as detailed Here. By syntax, generally he means the capability of a living system to "speak the language" of the ordering principle — the "language" of the semiotic meaning, which is the formal cause of the living system's own order (final cause). In other words, the whole (i.e., the living system) can never be merely the sum of its "material" parts.
(3) For any biologically functional component is itself "totally dependent on the context of the whole system and has no meaning outside that context (thus has no efficacy outside of that context). This is why reducing the system to its material parts loses information irreversibly." I.e., why the Newtonian Paradigm (the materialist, mechanistic conception) cannot comprehensively describe Nature. Its very choice of method eliminates the very possibility of comprehensive description because it effaces vital information on which the comprehensive description depends for its truth.

Another way to put this into perspective is to recognize that Rosen requires that formal and final causes be restored to modern science. It seems to me that Sir Francis Bacon became the father, if not of modern science, then of the modern scientific method, by abolishing formal and final causes from the purview of science, retaining only the other two Aristotelian causes, the material and efficient, as the proper business of the natural sciences exclusively. Evidently he did so because of what we might call the "anthropometric" bias implicit in formal and final causes. This can be illustrated in the case of final causes by Aristotle's remark, that "...no one would try to do anything if he were not likely to reach some limit (peras) [i.e., purpose or goal]; nor would there be reason in the world (nous), for the reasonable man always acts for the sake of an end — which is a limit." In short, just because a reasonable man acts for a purpose, this doesn't necessarily mean that Nature does.

Indeed, the neo-Darwinists love to tell us that Nature is "'blind"; i.e., has no purpose at all. Everything just works out by happenstance, by a "random" (i.e., unguided, uninformed) process.

And yet it seems to me that the very idea of a natural biological function logically involves the idea of the purpose or goal for which the function exists. However, it seems Bacon felt that, since such causes seem to pertain "only" to human action, he took it for granted that it could not be supposed that they had any extension in the "objective" universe. And in any case would not be "direct observables" or amenable to direct experimental tests, from whence all our "certainty" about natural facts can arise.

And here we are today, on the threshold of a potential paradigm shift in the sciences in which formal and final causes are considered "legitimate" again.

Well, that would be my "take," FWIW.

Thank you so much for writing, freedumb2003!

p.s.: Anyone needing a refresher on Aristotle's four causes, I hope this will help:

The formal cause (eidos) is the pattern or design according to which materials are selected and assembled for the execution of a particular goal or purpose. For example, in the case of a Boeing 747, the blueprint (or schematic) would be its formal cause. This is the key “explanation” for the jet; for its construction materials and subcomponents would be only a pile of rubble (or a different jet) if they were not put together in the particular way its blueprint specified.
The material cause is the basic stuff out of which something is made. The material cause of a Boeing 747, for example, would include the metals, plastics, glass, and other component materials used in its construction. All of these things belong in an explanation of the 747 because it could not exist unless they were present in its composition.
The efficient cause is the agent or force immediately responsible for bringing that material and that form together in the production of the Boeing 747. Thus, the efficient cause of the jet would include the efforts of engineers, materials fabricators, hydraulics specialists, and other workers who use the designated materials and components to build the jet in accordance with its specifying blueprint. Clearly the Boeing 747 could not be what it is without their contribution: It would remain unbuilt.
Lastly, the final cause (telos) is the end or purpose for which the Boeing 747 exists. The final cause of the jet would be to provide safe, reliable, comfortable air transportation for human beings. This is part of the explanation of the 747’s existence, because it never would have been built in the first place unless people needed a means of air transportation.