Philosophy

I suppose this all boils down to whether true randomness exists. I am not of the notion that any divine pulls the strings, unless the divine is the true laws of nature. That is, not the map of nature that humanity can measure or describe, but the actual territory of nature and it's laws.

There is always some variation in results of anything we test because of the multitude of complex inputs the universe gives two situations. We can't know of any phenomena that has the exact same result twice, because we would literally need 2 identical universes down to the Planck. Quantum entanglement is theoretically able to impact particles across immense distances, for example. A mere solar system or galaxy is not of the proper scale to test this. That is, determinism cannot be tested experimentally unless humanity could control literally all variables in a system, which I cannot imagine as possible.

Many scientists have dubbed the unpredictable nature of subatomic particles to randomness, but as you mentioned with the map and the territory, I propose that the tools at our disposal simply cannot interpret these actions and their causes precisely enough.

It's one of those known unknowns that will likely be a question for all time. But as long as the argument against determinism remains that humanity doesn't know the territory - the true nature - of the universe and therefore can hope there is some randomness, I cannot subscribe to it.