道格尔．狄克森

Dougal Dixon (born 1 March 1947) is a Scottish geologist, palaeontologist, educator and author. Dixon has written well over a hundred books on geology and palaeontology, many of them for children, which have been credited with attracting many to the study of the prehistoric animals. Because of his work as a prolific science writer, he has also served as a consultant on dinosaur programmes.

Dixon is most famous for his 1980/90s trilogy of speculative evolution books: After Man (1981), The New Dinosaurs (1988) and Man After Man (1990). These books use imagined future and alternate animals to explain various natural processes, including evolution, natural selection, zoogeography and climate change.

Early life and education

Dixon was born in Dumfries on 1 March 1947 to parents Thomas Bell Dixon and Margaret Ann Hurst. He had an older brother, John Edward, who died in 1942 at the age of six. Dixon spent most of his younger years in the Scottish borderlands. He credits the beginning of his writing career as being spawned from his love of creating stories, usually in the form of comic strips, as a child. His comic strips were typically science fiction-themed or otherwise futuristic, and frequently incorporated strange creatures. Dixon has had a special interest in evolution and fossils since his youth.

Dixon was first introduced to dinosaurs at the age of five, when he saw one in a comic book. Having never seen dinosaurs before, he took showed the image to his father, who in turn showed Dixon an old natural history book with pictures of ancient animals and fossils. Dixon has since credited this moment as igniting his interest for prehistoric creatures and natural history.

In 1970, Dixon graduated from the University of St Andrews with a Bachelor of Science, also with a degree in geology and teaching aids, and in 1972, he graduated with a Master of Science, having studied geology and palaeontology. Dixon's research thesis focused on palaeogeography, tracing the different landscapes of the British Isles throughout their geological history.

Career

Dixon's first experiences with publishing came when he worked as the in-house geological consultant for the publishing company Mitchell/Beazley Ltd. in London from 1973 to 1978. From 1978 to 1980 he worked as a book editor for Blandford Press in Dorset, England and from 1980 onwards he has worked as a freelance editor and writer. From 1976 to 1978 Dixon also worked as a part-time tutor, teaching geology and palaeontology, at the Open University. He also did teaching work from 1993 to 2005, sponsored by the publishing company Boyds Mills Press as a visiting lecturer at elementary schools in the United States, giving presentations about dinosaurs.

Dixon was a member of the board of governors of the Sandford First School in Wareham, Dorset from 1985 to 1987, and also a chairman of the Parent-Teachers Association at the Sandford Middle School, also located in Wareham, from 1985 to 1989.

Dixon has also done various other types of work. From 1981 to 1990, he worked as a civilian instructor for the Air Training Corps, a British volunteer-military youth organisation. He has also worked as a practical geologist. In 1995, he partook in an Open University/Earthwatch expedition to Askja Caldera, Iceland, and in 1987, Dixon was one of the excavators at a Jurassic-aged dinosaur-rich fossil site in Durlston, Dorset. Dixon was also involved in excavations of stegosaurian fossils in Montana from 2004 to 2008. Dixon has also participated in excavations in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Writing

Palaeontology and geology

Dixon today works as a full-time author and book editor and has written well over a hundred books. The majority of Dixon's books are encyclopaedias or children's books concerning palaeontology or geology. Through writing books on the subject on several different levels and adapting the material accordingly, reviewers have credited Dixon with attracting many to the study of dinosaurs and many of his books have been praised by critics. Some of his books, such as Hunting the Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (1987), Be a Dinosaur Detective (1988), and Dougal Dixon's Dinosaurs (1993), have long been recommended inclusions in school libraries and children's curricula. Dougal Dixon's Dinosaurs features Dixon's own artwork, an early example of a palaeontology book written and illustrated by the same person.

Dixon himself considers his palaeontology and geology books, due to inspiring others to take an active interest in these fields, to be his greatest contribution to science. He has also noted that the speed in which new palaeontology discoveries are made today often render portions of his books outdated before they are even published.

As a result of his books, Dixon is recognised as an authority on dinosaurs and has worked as a consultant and animator on dinosaur programmes. He has also hosted a Japanese programme on evolution, during which he travelled across the world, visiting, among other locations, the Galápagos Islands and the Serengeti. One of Dixon's more novel dinosaur books which has garnered him some attention is Time Exposure (1984), in which he collaborated with the wildlife photographer Jane Burton to portray extinct animals in life-like photographs. In addition to writing his own books, Dixon has also contributed to several collaborative encyclopaedias and dictionaries.