Sir Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson, FRS[6] (31 March 1938 – 1 August 2017) was an English biologist with interests in ethology and phenotypic plasticity.

[8][9][10][11][12] Bateson was educated at Westminster School and King's College, Cambridge[5] where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology in 1960 and a PhD for research on animal behaviour supervised by Robert Hinde.

He was a world authority on imprinting in birds – the process of learning to recognise their parents and members of their own species – and his work led to new principles in behavioural development.

[15] Previous academic positions include a Harkness Fellowship at Stanford University[2][16] and ten years as head of the Cambridge sub-department of Animal Behaviour.

[2][5][22] "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --"Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies".