book actually which was my first book called The Cook and the Gardener. And I -- right after I finished that basically I got hired at the New York times which was completely a stroke of luck . And I was, like, all right I guess I'm a writer now. Presenter: So it really just happened from you just deciding to write about something you were passionate about not really knowing you were a writer.
And the three finalists are Shepard, Grissom, and John Glenn. It was an incredible stroke of luck for Glenn, frankly.
He had one guy that he knew who lived there. And through a complete stroke of luck , he managed to find that guy. And that guy showed him how the camp worked.
And we also were very fortunate enough to live about five miles from the region's top trauma center that attracts some of the top neurosurgeons in the country. So that was another stroke of luck or destiny that was on my side that day. And when they rushed me to the ER, unconscious and unresponsive, they did an emergency scan and found that an aneurysm had ruptured, and it was causing a hemorrhage.
male #1: Professor Dawkins, thank you very much for coming and I'm a great admirer of your work and as yourself a proud atheist. And we don't know whether it was a massive stroke of luck .
From that perspective, if we're first on the block, fine. But there are many other groups of animals which are really not so far behind. Steve: But aren't human beings here by a massive stroke of luck ? I mean the asteroid that hit the Earth 63 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs and if that asteroid had never hit, wouldn't dinosaurs have continued to dominate the Earth and prevent large mammals from evolving, including humans?
And no one has been able to explain that. For now, it is a very strange stroke of luck . And it's not me who's saying it, it's the expert.
And much to my delight and amazement, Joseph actually agreed to help me and he in turn coerced, I mean convinced his friend Chris Lamb at Nvidia to help him. And this was a huge stroke of luck for me because when you think about the kind of DNA you need to work on a project like this, no pun intended, Chris and Joseph were truly a dream team.
male #1: Professor Dawkins, thank you very much for coming and I'm a great admirer of your work and as yourself a proud atheist. only had to happen once so that really could have been a massive stroke of luck .
male #1: Professor Dawkins, thank you very much for coming and I'm a great admirer of your work and as yourself a proud atheist. That would have been a phenomenon of Chemistry which would have been a chance, a stroke of luck , which had to come about probably in the primeval sea, and it
that kept you going after that? You know, in that month time, when you were just about to fail, what was the switch? Was it just the constant, hard work you poured into it in the six month? It was just kind of like a slow accumulation to some sort of crescendo? Or was it, you think, a stroke of luck that kept you going that month? Or was it some like, act of desperation you managed to pull out of thin air that you said, when you were backed into the corner?
this into issues that are closer to home that people do understand. And, in that context, I think that the global financial crisis is a stroke of luck . Sorry that, you know, for all the people who are out of work, that's no stroke of luck at all. But it is kind of the lack in the head that
And, in that context, I think that the global financial crisis is a stroke of luck . Sorry that, you know, for all the people who are out of work, that's no stroke of luck at all. But it is kind of the lack in the head that I speak of where people say, "Gee, everything we've been doing suddenly doesn't seem like we really knew what we were doing. So, maybe we can take bold steps now.”