Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson

Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson's books examine animal behavior, development, play, choice, variation, and the relation between inherited possibilities and lived experience. Behaviour, Development and Evolution resists treating development as a simple execution of a fixed plan. Organisms grow through continuing interaction among biological resources, environment, learning, and the opportunities available at different stages.

Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation explores activities whose immediate purpose may be open-ended yet whose consequences include flexibility, discovery, and new combinations of action. Mate Choice focuses attention on selection, preference, and the evidence needed to explain patterned behavior, while Perspectives in Ethology brings diverse research approaches into conversation. Across this work, explanation depends on keeping several timescales and levels in view.