“[T]he form that an animal's subjective experience takes will be a property of the internal computer model. That model will be designed, in evolution, for its suitability for useful internal representation, irrespective of the physical stimuli that come to it from outside. Bats and we need the same kind of internal model for representing the position of objects in three-dimensional space. The fact that bats construct their internal model with the aid of echoes, while we construct ours with the aid of light, is irrelevant.”

British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, atheist activist, and author

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, atheist activist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. In 1995 he became the first Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, a post he held until 2008. Dawkins is known for writing and speaking about evolution, science, and atheism, and for explaining science to a broad audience. He has received several academic and literary honors, including the 2005 Shakespeare Prize and the 2006 Lewis Thomas Prize.