''Een schitterend ongeluk'' (translated "A Glorious Accident" in English) was a 1993 documentary series featuring six prominent scientists and philosophers. Hosted by Wim Kayzer, a Dutch television producer, and filmed in seven parts, ''A Glorious Accident'' included interviews with

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those ...

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, math ...

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...

Oliver Sacks Oliver Wolf Sacks (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurology, neurologist, Natural history, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford ...

Rupert Sheldrake Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture that lacks mainstream acceptance and has been widely criticized as pseudoscience. He has ...

, and

Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought ...

. During six individual interviews with each guest and a final round table, the attendees discussed their vision of their work and the world with the central themes introduced by Kayzer: "How far did you come in your understanding of our thoughts and actions? What did science really bring us at the end of the 20th century: knowledge or also understanding?" "What is

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

?" "What is memory?" The roundtable discussion was filmed in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The film was released by

VPRO The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for ''Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep'', lit. 'Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcaster', nowadays known as ''Omroepvereniging VPRO'') is a Netherlands, Dutch Public broadcasting, public broadca ...

and produced by Nellie Kamer and Wim Kayzer. The film broke viewing records in the Netherlands in 1993. In the United States, ''A Glorious Accident'' was broadcast twice in June 1994 on PBS member station

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...

. In September 1996, PBS member station

KCET KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOC ...

in Los Angeles also broadcast the series. The film was over 15 hours in length. The title phrase "glorious accident" is attributed to Stephen Jay Gould who referred to the asteroid-induced extinction of the dinosaurs which preceded the development of humanity.

Book

Together with the series, a book with the same title containing the text from the interviews was also published in the Netherlands in 1993. It was a number one bestseller in the Netherlands for several months. The publisher summary reads: In 1997, a book titled ''A Glorious Accident: Understanding Our Place in the Cosmic Puzzle'' was also published in English.

References

External links

summary on VPRO website

IMDB page

''A Glorious Accident''
YouTube playlist of the complete series from VPRO.
''A Glorious Accident''
videos on the Internet Archive * Pages about the book o
LibraryThing
an
Internet Archive
* ''A Glorious Accident'' DVD box set on Internet Archive, courtesy VPRO (out of print). * ''A Glorious Accident'' VHS box set on Internet Archive, courtesy Films For The Humanities & Sciences (scans only, out of print). * ''Van de Schoonheid en de troost'' (Of Beauty and Consolation) DVD box set on Internet Archive, courtesy VPRO (out of print). Dutch documentary television series Science education television series 1990s Dutch television series 1993 Dutch television series debuts {{Netherlands-tv-prog-stub