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Added a section about Hadfield's debunking of geomagnetic reversal conspiracy theories peddled by Joe Rogan and Jimmy Corsetti.
→‎YouTube career: This section read as a personal essay relying on the videos as primary sources. I've cut it down to remove the improper synthesis and editorializing.
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==YouTube career==
==YouTube career==
Hadfield, known on YouTube as "Potholer54" and "Potholer54debunks", has made videos about various scientific topics, such as the science behind [[global warming]],<ref>{{cite web |title=27 -- The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ6Z04VJDco& |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=28 - The consequences of climate change (in our lifetimes) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNgqv4yVyDw&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Why global temperatures never go up in straight lines |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUk0tm47yr8 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> the [[age of the Earth]] and debunking arguments used by [[young Earth creationism|young Earth creationists]] to claim the Earth or universe are young,<ref>{{cite web |title=5 -- The Age of Our World Made Easy |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5369-OobM4 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> and for videos on how tricks of the trade in journalism can be used to fool viewers.<ref>{{cite web |title=TV tricks of the trade -- Quotes and cutaways |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07NMglQX6gE&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> In March 2010 Hadfield penned an opinion piece on his YouTube series for The Guardian.<ref name=Guardian2010/>
Hadfield, known on YouTube as "Potholer54" and "Potholer54debunks", has made videos about various scientific topics, such as the science behind [[global warming]],<ref>{{cite web |title=27 -- The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ6Z04VJDco& |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=28 - The consequences of climate change (in our lifetimes) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNgqv4yVyDw&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Why global temperatures never go up in straight lines |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUk0tm47yr8 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> the [[age of the Earth]] (debunking arguments used by [[young Earth creationism|young Earth creationists]] to claim the Earth or universe are young),<ref>{{cite web |title=5 -- The Age of Our World Made Easy |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5369-OobM4 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> and how 'tricks of the trade' in journalism can be used to fool viewers.<ref>{{cite web |title=TV tricks of the trade -- Quotes and cutaways |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07NMglQX6gE&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> In March 2010 Hadfield penned an opinion piece on his YouTube series for The Guardian.<ref name=Guardian2010/> Hadfield has debunked claims made by Christopher Monckton about climate science in a series entitled "Monckton Bunkum."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/01/climate-science-denialist-lord-monckton-s-ipcc-appointment-wasn-t |title=Climate Science Denialist Lord Monckton's IPCC "Appointment" That Wasn't |work=[[DeSmogBlog]] |date=1 November 2012 |access-date=14 October 2013 |author=Readfearn, Graham}}</ref>

===Creationism===
Hadfield has attacked the [[pseudoscience]] of [[created kinds]], also known as baraminology, being highly critical of the creationist preacher [[Kent Hovind]] for rejecting phylogenetic taxonomy in favour of it.<ref>{{cite web |author=potholer54 |title=Potholer and Hovind Come Together (Not like that!) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ilMYc5xdQ |access-date=3 July 2023 |website=[[YouTube]]}}</ref> Hadfield argues that baraminology is unscientific because it starts off with the predetermined conclusion that the Bible is correct and distorts science to fit with it.<ref name="KenHamBillNyeDebate" />

In one of Hadfield's videos, he shows how creationists like Hovind misrepresent [[Scientific literature|scientific papers]] to claim that [[radiocarbon dating]] does not work. Hadfield showed how Hovind dishonestly used studies that detailed the unreliability of radiocarbon dating in marine organisms such as seals and molluscs to denounce radiocarbon dating as useless in all instances. In reality, radiocarbon dating is inaccurate in marine organisms because they do not directly uptake carbon-14 from the air but from marine carbonates, the production of which causes isotopic fractionation that alters the quantity of carbon-14 in the sample. Hovind was also lambasted by Hadfield for conspiratorially asserting that palaeontologists would refuse to radiocarbon date non-avian dinosaur bones because they had predetermined that they must be too old for radiocarbon dating. Hadfield sarcastically exclaimed that palaeontologists would not carbon date it because "THERE'S NO FUCKING CARBON IN IT!" and showed that Hovind himself had acknowledged this earlier when he said that the carbon in dinosaur fossils was replaced by minerals.<ref>{{cite web |title=Carbon dating doesn't work -- debunked |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APEpwkXatbY&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has been highly critical of the supposed separation between experimental and historical science advocated by creationist [[Ken Ham]]. Hadfield explained that Ham's distinction is an entirely ad hoc differentiation designed so that Ham can arbitrarily reject any scientific disciplines that conflict with his religion and deem them false, accusing Ham of working backwards from his conclusion and arguing that his entire modus operandi is to distort scientific facts to fit his beliefs. Hadfield later demonstrated that Ham himself accepts information about extinct animals such as ''[[Triceratops]]'' gained from observations and inferences that are derived through what Ham deems "historical science".<ref name="KenHamBillNyeDebate">{{cite web |title=Ken Ham-Bill Nye debate: Just one point, Ken... |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMVYdgVVgc |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield also mocked the creationist suggestion that the [[banana]] was intelligently designed by God to fit in a human hand that was put forward by [[Ray Comfort]]; Hadfield lampooned Comfort for not knowing that the fruit had been selectively bred and genetically engineered over the course of human history.<ref>{{cite web |title=Golden Crocoduck nominees 2009 #1 |author=Potholer54debunks |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rw06Vwpo9Q&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield referred to the concept of a [[crocoduck]] invented by [[Kirk Cameron]] "laughable", explaining that [[ducks]] and [[crocodiles]] were part of completely different lineages that shared a most recent common ancestor in basal [[archosaurs]] that evolved in the [[Early Triassic]], long before either [[Bird|birds]] or [[Crocodylomorpha|crocodylomorphs]] emerged as distinct clades.<ref>{{cite web |title=7 -- The Theory of Evolution Made Easy |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w57_P9DZJ4 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield ridiculed [[Chuck Missler]] for thinking that the theory of evolution predicted that life would spontaneously spring into existence in a jar of [[peanut butter]]. Firstly, Hadfield points out that Missler is referring to [[abiogenesis]], which he erroneously synonymises and lumps together with evolution. Secondly, Hadfield refers to scientific evidence showing that the conditions in which the first life arose were very different from those in a sealed jar of peanut butter, making Missler's thought experiment irrelevant.<ref>{{cite web |title=6 -- Natural Selection Made Easy |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_RXX7pntr8 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has frequently derided creationists for misunderstanding natural selection. In a notable example, he showed how Buddy Davis created a straw man of palaeontologists believing that dinosaurs' survival instinct caused them to evolve feathers so they could fly. In reality, the mutations that caused the development of feathers arose randomly and were then selected for due to being beneficial for survival.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Creation Adventure Team go crazy! |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-JprqaVGw |access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield lampooned the creationist belief of Billy Crone that the Earth must be only a few thousand years old because the [[Earth's magnetic field]] would have melted the Earth's crust after just 20,000 years and that it would have vapourised the Earth if Earth were even a million years old. Hadfield showed how Crone believed this because he read that the Earth's magnetic field has decayed since the 19th century and mistakenly inferred that it must have been excessively high in the past and continuously decayed over time. He also pointed out that this claim was also based on an erroneous belief that the magnetic field itself generated energy and imparted it on the Earth as opposed to being generated by the motion of molten metal in Earth's core.<ref>{{cite web |title=Do population and magnetic fields prove a young Earth? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6XWw7KwJkg&t=0s |access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has challenged the [[historicity of the Bible]] and debunked the pseudohistorical claims of creationists contorting the historical record to fit Biblical chronology.<ref>{{cite web |author=potholer54 |title=Making history fit the Bible (like squeezing a large guy into a small car) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-AIQk4KZ6U |access-date=3 July 2023 |website=[[YouTube]]}}</ref>

===Climate change===
Hadfield has stated that both sides in the [[global warming debate]] have made erroneous statements, saying, "while skeptics like [[Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley]] and [[Martin Durkin (television director)|Martin Durkin]] fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs."<ref name=Guardian2010/>

Hadfield has made videos debunking the claims made by Christopher Monckton about climate science in public presentations; Hadfield's series on this topic is entitled "Monckton Bunkum."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/01/climate-science-denialist-lord-monckton-s-ipcc-appointment-wasn-t |title=Climate Science Denialist Lord Monckton's IPCC "Appointment" That Wasn't |work=[[DeSmogBlog]] |date=1 November 2012 |access-date=14 October 2013 |author=Readfearn, Graham}}</ref> Among other false claims, Hadfield debunked Monckton's cherry picking of start and end points in the historical global temperature record that he used to make it seem that the Earth had not been warming,<ref name="MoncktonBunkumPart1">{{cite web |title=Monckton Bunkum Part 1 - Global cooling and melting ice |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> his confusion of forcing with sensitivity,<ref name="MoncktonBunkumPart2">{{cite web |title=Monckton Bunkum Part 2 - Sensitivity |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> his claim that Himalayan glaciers showed no change over the past two centuries when his own sources showed otherwise,<ref name="MoncktonBunkumPart3">{{cite web |title=Monckton Bunkum Part 3 - Correlations and Himalayan glaciers |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> misquotes of [[John Houghton (physicist)|Sir James Houghton]],<ref name="MoncktonBunkumPart4">{{cite web |title=Monckton Bunkum Part 4 -- Quotes and misquotes |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3giRaGNTMA |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> and his false assertion that the [[International Astronomical Union]] (IAU) concluded in 2004 that global warming was mostly attributable to solar forcing, the IAU having made no such claim.<ref name="MoncktonBunkumPart5">{{cite web |title=Monckton bunkum Part 5 -- What, MORE errors, my lord? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> A back-and-forth ensued, in which Monckton responded to Hadfield's video series about him on [[Watts Up With That?]], whereupon Hadfield replied in turn.<ref name="MoncktonRespondsPart1">{{cite web |title=Monckton responds (part 1/2) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K74fzNAUq4 |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="MoncktonRespondsPart2">{{cite web |title=Monckton responds (part 2/2) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5h1KNMAA&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has also debunked claims that global warming stopped in 1998 made by blogger Michael Andrews and United States Senator [[James Inhofe]],<ref>{{cite web |title=8. Climate Change -- Has the Earth been cooling? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvMmPtEt8dc |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> and has explained that this assertion is based on arbitrarily cherry picking unusually warm years in the past as the starting point and unusually cool ones as the end point to show very little to no warming over the time interval.<ref>{{cite web |title=24 - Global warming has stopped? Again?? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbn1rCZz1ow |access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref> His video about how [[climate change deniers]] have claimed that the world has been cooling since 1998 has been featured on [[Boing Boing]], where [[Maggie Koerth-Baker]] has called it "true skepticism at its best."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://boingboing.net/2010/11/04/where-climate-myths.html |title=Where climate myths come from |work=[[Boing Boing]] |date=4 November 2010 |access-date=16 October 2013 |last=Koerth-Baker |first=Maggie}}</ref>

Hadfield has repeatedly criticised sceptics of anthropogenic global warming for not understanding the concept of climate feedbacks. While responding to an exchange between Monckton and [[Stefan Molyneux]], Hadfield pointed out that Molyneux did not understand [[positive feedback]], which Molyneux referred to as a "magic multiplier".<ref>{{cite web |title=Response to "The Global Warming Hoax Lord Monckton & Stefan Molyneux" |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiZlBspV2-M |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> In a different debate with Tony Heller that ensued after Heller attempted to debunk mainstream climatological conclusions presented by Hadfield, Hadfield debunked Heller's false analogy of climate feedbacks to positive feedback loops generated by a sound amplifier.<ref>{{cite web |title=Response to Tony Heller |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLjkLPnIPPw |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> As the debate went on, Heller continued to misunderstand positive feedback, prompting Hadfield to continue trying to explain it to him.<ref>{{cite web |title=Heller response #2 |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weQ-N4iymrQ |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Response to Tony Heller #3 |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5fncpSikwk&t=0s |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Potholer-Heller debate -- rebuttal #4 |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq2Wv2KHGBc |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield criticised [[Patrick Moore (consultant)|Patrick Moore]] for obfuscating in a video for [[Prager University]] the relationship between global temperature and carbon dioxide over geologic time. Hadfield showed that Moore's claims could only be supported if one ignored the growing luminosity of the Sun over the course of its lifetime, something he sarcastically contrasted with Moore saying "it's the Sun, stupid!" as a way of demonstrating the irony of Moore omitting this detail from his graph. Hadfield furthermore showed that global temperatures over the Phanerozoic and solar output correlate with one another no better than global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, which would make Moore's claims erroneous by his own shoddy methodology. Hadfield demonstrated that climate sceptics' claims that there is no correlation between carbon dioxide and global temperature can only be reached by misusing out-ox-context figures from the works of [[Robert A. Berner]] and [[Christopher Scotese]] that each agreed with the conclusion that carbon dioxide drove Phanerozoic global temperatures.<ref name="ResponseToPatrickMoore">{{cite web |title=Response to Patrick Moore's "What They Haven't Told You about Climate Change" |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XIpTqbLR5Y&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has on many occasions addressed the myth that humans only contribute 3% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, showing how this claim was based on human emissions being only 3% of the total carbon flux, or the movement of carbon between different reservoirs within the carbon cycle. Hadfield also educated his viewers about the [[Suess effect]], which is the enrichment in carbon-12 in the ocean-atmosphere system caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which have a disproportionately high amount of carbon-12 relative to heavier carbon isotopes. Hadfield explained how it enables scientists to calculate the magnitude of anthropogenic carbon emissions.<ref>{{cite web |title=Are humans contributing only 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcmCBetoR18 |access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref> Hadfield similarly dismissed a claim made by [[Ian Plimer]] that [[volcanoes]] produce more carbon dioxide than humans, showing how Plimer never gave a source for that assertion and appeared to have made it up.<ref>{{cite web |title=Do volcanoes produce more CO2 than human activity? -- a look at Ian Plimer's claim. |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1c3IKqQ2Sc |access-date=7 August 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has lampooned critics of climatology who claim that carbon dioxide is beneficial because it is "plant food". He has shown that climate change deniers like [[Craig D. Idso]] and [[Gregory Wrightstone]] vastly exaggerate the effects of carbon dioxide on plant growth in order to try to convince people that burning fossil fuels is good, doing so by citing increased plant growth that happens when you increase carbon dioxide concentrations from 150 ppm to 270 ppm, in contrast to experiments that show a much lower increase in plant growth if carbon dioxide was increased from present levels to the levels projected in the future as a result of human activity. Hadfield also debunked the fabricated claim made by climate change deniers that the increase in agricultural productivity over the past century was because of carbon dioxide and not the [[Green Revolution]] and the increased use of fertilisers.<ref name="PlantFood">{{cite web |title='Top CO2 facts' -- How much and how little CO2 is "plant food." |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJoijPh2i-A& |access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref>

Hadfield has taken aim at a number of predictions of a forthcoming "grand solar minimum" and "mini-ice age" made by [[Don Easterbrook]], Kevin Long, [[Habibullo Ismailovich Abdussamatov]], and others.<ref>{{cite web |title=Are we headed for a Grand Solar Minimum? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjgCaF9BGUo&t=0s |access-date=13 August 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A short chronology of failed 'ice age' predictions |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6eswiI3KLc&t=0s |access-date=13 August 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield put the British journalist [[James Delingpole]] in his crosshairs and dismantled his assertions after he misrepresented a ''[[Nature Geoscience]]'' article and claimed that it proved climate change deniers correct.<ref>{{cite web |title=Did scientists REALLY just admit to exaggerating global warming? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mKIKGEF5E |access-date=7 August 2023}}</ref>

Hadfield has eschewed the term "climate change denier" and does not use it. Nonetheless, he has criticised climate sceptics for their hypocrisy regarding their objection to the term, such as Patrick Moore claiming that calling climate sceptics "deniers" is a bad faith argument intended to equate them with [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust deniers]] whilst calling those who accept mainstream conclusions "deniers of naturally caused climate change".<ref name="ResponseToPatrickMoore" />

In addition to his debunking of climate change deniers, Hadfield has also disproven false claims pushed by left-wing politicians that exaggerate global warming. [[Al Gore]] and his film ''[[An Inconvenient Truth]]'' were targeted by Hadfield for misleading their audience by implying that the Greenland ice cap would melt in the near future even though scientific studies predict this will happen over many millennia.<ref>{{cite web |title=4 - Climate Change -- Gore vs. Durkin |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2B34sO7HPM&t=0s |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref> Hadfield lambasted [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] for saying in 2019 that the world was going to end in twelve years.<ref>{{cite web |title=Of course the world isn't ending in 12 years |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J8j7GuLuQ |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

===Expanding Earth===
Hadfield has criticised and lampooned the [[Expanding Earth]] hypothesis, an obsolete hypothesis from before the discovery of [[plate tectonics]] that attempted to explain the apparent [[continental drift]] over geologic time. He has referred to the belief of comic artist [[Neal Adams]], one proponent of the theory, that [[pair production]] in Earth's core generates extra mass as Earth supposedly expands as "New Age hippiespeak". Additionally, he also mocked James Maxlow, a geologist who continues to advocate this theory, for mistakenly referring to the Sun as a "giant blob of pure energy" after he suggested that the driver of the Earth's expansion may be the same thing as "whatever the Sun is made of".<ref>{{cite web |title=Expanding earth my ass |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epwg6Od49e8 |access-date=25 December 2015}}</ref>

===Geomagnetic reversals===
Hadfield has challenged claims made and promoted by Ben Davidson, Jimmy Corsetti, and [[Joe Rogan]] that the Earth undergoes cataclysms every 6,000 years because of [[geomagnetic reversals]] that cause the Earth's poles to move 90 degrees towards the Equator and that cause the Earth to stand still and stop rotating, generating apocalyptic tsunamis due to the rotational inertia of the water on Earth's surface. Hadfield showed that the findings of aquatic organisms on the peaks of mountains, cited by proponents of the conspiracy theory as evidence of it, is explained adequately by plate tectonics.<ref name="GlobalCatastropheDocument">{{cite web |title=Did the CIA classify a "global catastrophe" document? (Corrected and updated) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FtYSzS53C0&t=0s |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> Hadfield also exposed Davidson's misleading implications that solar flares could cause the Earth to come to a standstill by showing that scientific studies found that flares only slow the time of one Earth's rotation on the order of a millisecond, and that even the largest flares would only affect Earth's rotation time by a few seconds. Additionally, Hadfield showed viewers the timeline of geomagnetic reversals in the Earth's geologic past and that they do not occur at regular intervals of 6,000 years.<ref>{{cite web |title=Will Earth's magnetic reversal cause catastrophe? (Part 2 of 'Did the CIA classify...?) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmUdUDIjVQ&t=0s |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> Hadfield also showed that the book spawning these conspiracy theories was always publicly available and was never classified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as some of the conspiracy theory's proponents suggest, but that only one particular copy that was mailed to them was.<ref name="GlobalCatastropheDocument" />

===HAARP===
As an example of his style of debunking, in June 2013 Hadfield revealed that a photo that was provided as evidence for a link between [[High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program]] (HAARP) and the [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami|2004 tsunami]] in the first episode of the television show ''[[Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura]]'', was purchased from a commercial photographer's website.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhWpP-vPUcQ|title=Conspiracy theories conspiracy|author=potholer54|website=YouTube|access-date=25 December 2015}}</ref> The photo was introduced by the TV-show's lead investigator Raheem as a picture of the [[Aurora borealis]]. Hadfield found that the photo was described by the photographer as being of the [[Aurora Australis]].<ref>[http://www.posters-wanted.com/details.php?productid=2889075&poster=Aurora_Australis&artist=David%20%20Miller "Aurora Australis by David Miller"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714155741/http://www.posters-wanted.com/details.php?productid=2889075&poster=Aurora_Australis&artist=David%20%20Miller |date=14 July 2014 }}. Posters-wanted.com, visited on 14 June 2014</ref>

===COVID-19===
Hadfield has been critical of the [[COVID-19 lab leak theory]], pointing out the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science made by many of its proponents, such as [[Nicholas Wade]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Fact-checking Nicholas Wade's claims about a 'man-made' virus |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjafLCvejQA |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> [[Matthew Tye]],<ref>{{cite web |title=More "man-made" SARS-CoV-2 lab-leak malarky |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX1EqRuVeU0&t=0s |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> and [[Radio France Internationale]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Did SARS-Cov-2 start in a Chinese lab? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab-r0capbzk |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> Hadfield likewise debunked false claims that significant numbers of deaths were falsely attributed to COVID-19,<ref>{{cite web |title=How many 'Covid' deaths are really caused by Covid-19? |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzh6HwN0gbw |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> and has called out various politicians and media outlets, such as [[Donald Trump]], [[Fox News]], and [[Sky News]], for their promotion of [[hydroxychloroquine]] as a cure for [[COVID-19]] despite no evidence supporting its efficacy as a treatment.<ref>{{cite web |title=The rise and fall of Hydroxychloroquine |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vGj03pC2tY&t=0s |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> In addition, Hadfield showed how Trump's lack of understanding of the difference between [[case fatality rate]] and [[infection fatality rate]] sparked numerous [[conspiracy theories]] that scientists were exaggerating the danger of COVID-19.<ref>{{cite web |title=The difference between Case Fatality Rate and Infection Fatality Rate. |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAB43K2gtOk&t=0s |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref> Hadfield mocked [[Ted Nugent]] for believing that COVID-19 was the nineteenth incarnation of the coronavirus and that there were viruses named COVID-1, COVID-2, and so on.<ref>{{cite web |title=Another side-effect of Covid-19: Stupidity |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5inXVPS1Is&t=0s |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref> Hadfield also examined a fake quote from [[Kary Mullis]] that claimed [[polymerase chain reaction]] (PCR) tests do not work; the quote was actually from John Lauritsen and said not that PCR tests do not work but that they cannot determine the quantity of a given pathogen.<ref>{{cite web |title=Debunking internet myths about PCR testing |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H2YA0JvfRc&t=0s |access-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

===Vaccines===
Hadfield has debunked and mocked the claims of [[anti-vaccine]] activists such as that [[MMR vaccine and autism|MMR vaccines are a cause of autism]], an assertion based on a [[Lancet MMR autism fraud|fraudulent paper in ''The Lancet'']] by anti-vaccine activist [[Andrew Wakefield]], among numerous other [[Vaccine misinformation|anti-vaccine conspiracy theories]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Health, vaccinations and junk science |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ZZTjChW4o |access-date=26 July 2023}}</ref> [[Michael Yeadon]], an [[anti-vaccine activist]] who claimed outside of peer-reviewed medical journals that the [[Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine]] could cause infertility because the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein shared a sequence of four base pairs with [[syncytin-1]], has also come under fire by Hadfield.<ref>{{cite web |title=Covid vaccine causes infertility -- FACT CHECK |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeoMBc8G5A4&t=0s |access-date=4 July 2023}}</ref>

===Pseudoarchaeology===
Hadfield has criticised [[pseudoarcheology|pseudoarchaeologist]] [[Graham Hancock]] and his [[Netflix]] series ''[[Ancient Apocalypse]]'' for their pseudohistorical claims about a "lost civilisation" prior to the [[Younger Dryas]] in a two-part video series. Hadfield revealed that Hancock had misrepresented and exaggerated numerous facts about ancient monuments such as [[Gunung Padang]] and [[Göbekli Tepe]] by suggesting that these advanced structures appear suddenly in the archaeological record despite being preceded by a record of less advanced sites indicating gradual technological development and contradicting Hancock's "lost civilisation" thesis. Hadfield further explained how Hancock's stereotypical presentation of mainstream [[archaeologists]] as dogmatic and close-minded is used to present Hancock as a voice of reason and a victim of censorship.<ref>{{cite web |title=Graham Hancock and the evidence for his 'Ancient Apocalypse' (Episode one) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU-wQVAqQnk&t=0s |access-date=11 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=More debunking of Graham Hancock's "Ancient Apocalypse" (Ep 5: Gobekli Tepe) |author=potholer54 |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZGp6N3AHTA&t=0s |access-date=11 July 2023}}</ref>


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 05:36, 20 June 2024

Peter Hadfield
Hadfield in 2014
Personal information
Born (1954-07-01) 1 July 1954 (age 70)
NationalityBritish
Occupations
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2007–present
Subscribers226.00 thousand[1]
Total views32.11 million[1]
100,000 subscribers2015
Last updated: 8 July 2022

Peter Hadfield (born 1 July 1954) is a British freelance journalist and author,[2] trained as a geologist,[3] who runs the YouTube channel Potholer54,[4] which has over 233,000 subscribers.[5] He has previously lived in Japan,[2] and now lives in Australia.[6][7]

Early life and education

Peter Hadfield's father was a noted child psychiatrist, Dr. Ian Hadfield.[8]

Hadfield has a degree in geology from Kingston University.[citation needed][9]

Reporting career

Hadfield wrote a weekly humour column for The Mainichi Daily News (the English edition of the Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun) while living in Japan.[10] He was The Sunday Times correspondent in Tokyo from 1988 to 1990, then wrote a regular column for the Daily Mail on life in Japan.

Later he became Tokyo correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph and U.S. News & World Report. He was also the Tokyo correspondent for New Scientist for 14 years.[2] His writing has appeared in other publications, such as the BBC News website[11], USA Today, The Guardian,[12] The Independent, The Daily Telegraph,[13] The South China Morning Post and The Lancet.

In 1991 Hadfield became Far East correspondent for Monitor Radio, and reported throughout East Asia.[14] During this period, Hadfield wrote and appeared on screen regularly as a correspondent for CNN,[15] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ABC News (U.S.)[16] and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).[2]

Hadfield's book, "Sixty Seconds that Will Change the World," about the potential implications of an earthquake in Tokyo, was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1991.[17] A second revised edition was published by Pan and Tuttle in 1995 after the Kobe earthquake.[18]

In 1995, Hadfield was one of a group of reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ) that interviewed Tatsusaburo Suzuki, a lieutenant colonel in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) who had served during World War II as the IJA's liaison to the Japanese nuclear weapons programme, about the activities and progression of Imperial Japan's nuclear programme over the course of the war.[19] Hadfield published an article about Suzuki's revelations in New Scientist that same year.[20] On 13 January 2024, fearing the potential that the FCCJ could one day become defunct, Hadfield uploaded the full interview to his YouTube channel, where he also expressed dismay about what he saw as the time wasted by amateur tabloid reporters who did not understand science and asked Suzuki to explain basic facts about nuclear physics to them, referencing an instance of a tabloid reporter asking Suzuki to explain to him what a neutron was.[19]

More recently, he has contributed regularly to the CBC, NPR, and BBC radio programmes Costing The Earth, Science in Action, The World Tonight, Outlook and East Asia Today, as well as the ABC's Science Show.[2][21]

YouTube career

Hadfield, known on YouTube as "Potholer54" and "Potholer54debunks", has made videos about various scientific topics, such as the science behind global warming,[22][23][24] the age of the Earth (debunking arguments used by young Earth creationists to claim the Earth or universe are young),[25] and how 'tricks of the trade' in journalism can be used to fool viewers.[26] In March 2010 Hadfield penned an opinion piece on his YouTube series for The Guardian.[4] Hadfield has debunked claims made by Christopher Monckton about climate science in a series entitled "Monckton Bunkum."[27]

References

  1. ^ a b "About potholer54". YouTube.
  2. ^ a b c d e Hadfield, Peter. "Who I am". YouTube.
  3. ^ Evelyn (14 May 2011). "Earthquakes and End-of-the-World Nonsense". Skepchick. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  4. ^ a b Hadfield, Peter (29 March 2010). "How my YouTube channel is converting climate change sceptics". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  5. ^ "YouTube channel belonging to Peter Hadfield – YouTube username "potholer54"". YouTube.
  6. ^ Welcome to PragerU — the "university" that gets its science wrong, retrieved 26 September 2021
  7. ^ The cause of Australia's bushfires – what the SCIENCE says, retrieved 26 September 2021
  8. ^ "DR IAN HADFIELD". Hampshire Chronicle. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  9. ^ "Peter Hadfield addresses the recent email release". skepticalscience.com. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  10. ^ MacLaren, Don, "Pros and cons of Japan-bashing" The Mainichi Daily News, 31 October 1998
  11. ^ "Fujimori charged with murder". 28 August 2001. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  12. ^ Hadfield, Peter. "Japan's earthquake will create a global financial aftershock" The Guardian, 15 March 2011
  13. ^ Hadfield, Peter (2 December 2001). "Joy in Japan as princess gives birth". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  14. ^ Hadfield, Peter (13 January 2014). "Thai protests: Coup talk in the air as opposition shuts down Bangkok". CBC News. CBC/Radio-Canada.
  15. ^ "CNN.com – Japan suspects first case of mad cow – September 10, 2001". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  16. ^ "8 Children Dead in Japanese School Stabbing". ABC News. 6 January 2006. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  17. ^ Hadfield, Peter (1991). Sixty Seconds that Will Change the World: The Coming Tokyo Earthquake. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 9780283060793. OCLC 636240141.
  18. ^ Hadfield, Peter (1995). Sixty Seconds that Will Change the World: The Coming Tokyo Earthquake (2nd ed.). Pan. ISBN 9780330345804. OCLC 877595802.
  19. ^ a b potholer54. "The last surviving scientist on Japan's atomic bomb program tells his story (Dr. Tatsusaburo Suzuki)". YouTube. Retrieved 13 January 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ Hadfield, Peter (29 July 1995). "Japan 'came close' to wartime A-bomb". New Scientist. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  21. ^ "Thousands flee Japanese floods". Asia-Pacific. BBC News. 12 September 2000.
  22. ^ potholer54. "27 -- The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC". YouTube. Retrieved 3 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ potholer54. "28 - The consequences of climate change (in our lifetimes)". YouTube. Retrieved 3 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ potholer54. "Why global temperatures never go up in straight lines". YouTube. Retrieved 3 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ potholer54. "5 -- The Age of Our World Made Easy". YouTube. Retrieved 3 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ potholer54. "TV tricks of the trade -- Quotes and cutaways". YouTube. Retrieved 3 July 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ Readfearn, Graham (1 November 2012). "Climate Science Denialist Lord Monckton's IPCC "Appointment" That Wasn't". DeSmogBlog. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
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