WHAT: Potholer54 discussion with Eugenie Scott Join Bay Area Skeptics president Eugenie Scott in a wide-ranging conversation with science journalist and creator of the very popular skeptical YouTube channel, Potholer54. Through clips from the channel, Scott and Hadfield discuss his approach to his long-time production of science-related videos, and the importance of outreach to the public to encourage critical thinking and accurate scientific knowledge. With over 232,000 subscribers and over 32 million views, Potholer54 is one of the most popular YouTube science-related sites.
WHO: Peter Hadfield is a geologist by training, and a journalist by profession, a combination that is very amenable to analyses of “extraordinary claims”, as Carl Sagan termed them. Using both his science background and journalistic techniques of investigation and analysis, his videos are informative and lively. He became an overseas correspondent for the London Times, a columnist for the Daily Mail, and also a correspondent for New Scientist. He got into broadcasting from print journalism almost by accident, by happening to be in Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents Club when Boston’s Monitor Radio called asking for someone for a Q&A and he picked up the phone. Monitor subsequently made him their Far East correspondent, and other media (such as CBC, NPR, BBC, and so forth), followed, and for several years he filed investigative stories from around the world. But he continued to file science stories with New Scientist, and write science-related stories for BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Company, and others, including USA Today, and US News and World Report, eventually adding the medium of television to radio for many of these outlets.He combined these media, scientific, and journalistic skills in his YouTube site, Potholer54, where he has provided the public with insightful analyses of numerous pseudoscientific claims that can loosely be grouped into categories like Creationism, Climate Change, Vaccines, COVID 19, and Pseudoarchaeology. With a touch of Monty Python….
WHEN: Thursday 12 October @ 7:30PM Pacific (0230 UTC)