The statements above are philosophical statements.  Though the authors who have made them are eminent scientists, these statements cannot be justified scientifically.

Where Scientists get it wrong

    Science is the field of human endeavor that studies the objective world - those things in the world that we can observe, measure, or weigh.  It can say nothing about the intangible experiences in our life: consciousness, morals, values, or ethics.  Therefore, statements, such as those below, that infer anything about these aspects of our experience purely from scientific facts are inherently impossible to justify.

The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we would expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Richard Dawkins, 1995

The Astonishing Hypothesis is that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cell and their associated molecules.” Francis Crick,1995.

There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make moral choices.” William Provine, 1988

Chance alone is the sole source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of this stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It today is the sole conceivable hypothesis; the only one that squares with observed and tested facts. Jacques Monod, 1973