People
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Dougal Dixon was born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1947, and spent most of his youth in the Scottish borderlands. He graduated Bachelor of Science in geology from The University of St Andrews in 1970 and Master of Science in 1972. He has a special interest in fossils and evolution and his research thesis was on the subject of palaeogeography.He is now a full-time writer and book editor specializing in the earth sciences, and has many children's books and encyclopaedias to his name. He his acquired a reputation for putting over the concepts in a totally novel way. Along these lines his most notable books are
After
Man: a zoology of the future in which he explained the workings of evolution by postulating the types of animals that may evolve in times to come (optioned by Spielberg's Dreamworks company);
The New
Dinosaurs, in which he described the zoogeography of the world by describing what life might be like today had the dinosaurs not become extinct;
Man After
Man, in which the physical changes to the earth's environment over the next few million years are described through the eyes of people who have been genetically engineered to cope with them, and
Time Exposure (aka The Age of Dinosaurs) in collaboration with wildlife photographer Jane Burton, in which extinct animals are dramatically portrayed in lifelike photographs. |
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He has made several television appearances, and acted as a consultant and animator for a video programme about dinosaurs. He has acted as presenter for a Japanese television programme about evolution, during which he worked in the Serengeti, the rain forest of Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands.
He is a great enthusiast of science fiction and has addressed several conventions - usually on the subject of the evolutionary and ecological veracity of science fiction aliens.
He is also part-owner and projectionist of the
Rex Cinema - a job he does for love of the art-form, not for the money!