Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, and killed or castrated sufferers to prevent them from passing tainted blood to a new generation.
I don’t think any scientist, no matter how reasoned, could adequately answer this question – because it’ll boil down to semantics over the definition of “free will”, then devolve into solipsism. A better headline would be something like: “Renowned biologist argues his belief in lack of free will.”
Free will is often defined as the capability to have done otherwise.
and that is why math theorem starts with definitions of the terms.