Potholer54

Hadfield in 2014 at the Australian Skeptics Convention

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Potholer54 (real name Peter Hadfield) is a British vlogger and ex-Radio 4/CBC superhero. He has been a journalist for over 20 years, 14 years as a science correspondent, and holds a geology degree. Potholer54 is a firm defender of science and a staunch critic of pseudoscience, creationism, and global warming denialism. He is one of the few atheists on YouTube not crowdfunded and not constantly harping on gender politics.

Golden Crocoduck Awards

For our article on the actual proposed animal, see Crocoduck.

Hadfield hosts the famed Golden Crocoduck Awards on the Potholer54 YouTube channel, originally running for five years between 2008 and 2013 and revived in 2002. The awards are given for the biggest breach of the 9th Commandment by creationists in support of their cause. Potholer54 presents the nominees, educating the audience on who they are and what ridiculous things they have said or believe, before announcing a winner of October 28th. Nominees include both mainstream creationists, such as Lee Strobel, Ray Comfort, Chuck Missler (the peanut butter guy), Kent Hovind, and creationists only known on YouTube. such as VenomFangX, NephilimFree, emptywithoutchrist and truthfulchristan.

The Crocoduck idea came from creationist Kirk Cameron who claimed that "evolutionists" have been searching for a "missing link" for years, and throughout the fossil record we have never found a half-duck half-crocodile.

1st Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2007-08)

Winner of the 2008 Golden Crocoduck Award goes to: mister Kent Hovind, convicted charlatan YEC. Congratulations, Mr. Hovind. The following contenders that made it into the Top 4 are:

1. VenomFangX - most famous and devious YouTube creationist on the Internets.
2. Ben Stein - maker of the creationist propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
3. Kirk Cameron - obviously

2nd Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2008-09)

Nominees

1. Eric Hovind - son of Kent Hovind
2. Ray Comfort - author, liar, and scientifically-illiterate creationist, otherwise known as Bananaman!
3. Don Patton - a YEC with a phony Ph.D
4. sincitypreacher - YouTube user, a very poorly informed creationist
5. Adauto Lourenço - a Brazilian creationist
6. Dr. Earl Tilford - Historian who boosts that the theory of evolution (survival of the fittest) led to the Holocaust (which is like saying the theory of gravity encourages people to drop babies off the Golden Gate Bridge).
7. Tom Mike Riddle
8. Emptywithoutjesus - creationist YouTube user; scientifically-illiterate, very poorly informed, and rather closed minded.
9. Lee Strobel - author, creationist and major intelligent design advocate
10. GoodScienceForYou - a YouTube creationist
11. NephilimFree - a YEC, geocentrist, believes in UFOs and aliens (some of whom got frisky with humans, according to him) and just crazy.
12. funtravel77 - a YouTube creationist who thinks Potholer54 is a sock of Thunderf00t, who thinks fossilized dinosaur bones are organic minerals.

Winner of the StoneCommander Defiance in Ignorance Memorial Prize for the "dumbest smug question that is impossible to answer" goes to: QQOQQ, a British YouTube creationist who repeats the same question, particularly to AronRa, "How did we get everything from nothing?" and continues to repeat the question even after receiving multiple valid answers. (In later Golden Crocoduck ceremonies, Potholer54 actually renamed this award to "the QQOQQ," pronounced "Cock.")

Winner of the 2009 Golden Crocoduck Award goes to: Ray Comfort with a staggering 2,647 votes. Congratulations Banana-Man!

The following contenders that made it into the Top 5 are:

1. Eric Hovind - 549 votes
2. Lee Strobel - 241 votes
3. Adauto Lourenco - 116 votes
4. GoodScienceForYou - 101 votes

3rd Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2009-10)

Winner of the 2010 Golden Crocoduck Award goes to: NephilimFree with 1,644 votes. Congratulations! The cheers from the crowd are so loud, the aliens can't wait to come to Earth and party with us and hopefully take Nephilim to one of their zoos.

The following were runners-up:

1. Billy Crone (a non-scientist pastor who shouts ludicrous creationist arguments during sermons) - 633 votes
2. The Truth Group (a YEC group) - 393 votes
3. John Pendleton (a creationist who wears a white lab coat, believing it somehow makes his creationist BS turn into truth) - 72 votes
4. Brock Lee (founder and President of the Young Earth Creation Organization) - 66 votes
5. Ian Juby (a favorite entertainer of YouTube user VenomFangX) - 55 votes
6. Jonathan Sarfati (a creationist who pretends to be a paleontologist) - 8 votes

Cancelled Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2010-11)

The 2011 GCA's were cancelled this year following the drama that erupted with Amenakin (see below). The reason for the cancellation was not because of the false DMCA filed on behalf of Amenakin nor YouTube's back-and-forth stance on the safe harbour status, but (according to Hadfield himself) due to the conduct of YouTube commentors in the wake of the controversy, leading to "pornographic insults" and uncivil conduct. Potholer explained that he wanted these awards to be a means to make fun of creationist claims, not to further someone's cause. He briefly considered scrapping the GCA's altogether, but (thankfully) that did not happen.

4th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2011-12)

Winner of the 2012 Golden Crocoduck Award goes to: Eric Hovind with 1,644 votes. Congratulations Eric, the award is in the mail, and that's as true as the uphill climb of the Colorado River.

The following runners-up are:

1. Ian Juby (Youtube username Wazooloo) - 1,209 votes
2. Megasage007 - 512 votes
3. WhatYouOughtToKnow - 320 votes
4. Fernieboy100 - 179 votes
5. EmptyWithoutJesus - 71 votes
6. ppsimmons - 50 votes
7. ZaidG - 28 votes
8. MyGhettoGospel - 17 votes

Winner of the QQOQQ Defiance in Ignorance Prize goes to: qwertyfshag, who posed the "Which came first: the chicken, or the egg?" question, believing it has no answer. But, of course, there is an answer (the egg).

5th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2012-13)

Winner of the 2013 Golden Crocoduck Award goes to: Louis Giglio with 2,025 votes. Congratulations Louis, you are the last winner of the Golden Crocoduck.

The following runners-up are:

1. VenomFangX - 894 votes
2. David Berlinski - 892 votes
3. Harun Yahya - 830 votes
4. Frank289100 - 481 votes

Potholer54 announced that this would be the last year that he does the Golden Crocoduck Awards because his workload was going to be increased quite a bit in the upcoming future.

6th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2022-23)

Nominations for the 6th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards opened on October 28th 2022 with an announcement from Hadfield on the Potholer54 YouTube channel that the awards would be returning the following year in a more limited form. The main difference was that rather than a public vote, as in previous years, the winner was to be chosen by Hadfield.

Winner of the 6th Annual Golden Crockaduck Award: Matt Powell for the "sheer amount of brazen bullshit he has produced."

Nominees in full:

1. Kat Kerr - disqualified as being batshit crazy on its own does not confer eligibility.
2. Kennedy Hall - host of the Kennedy Report for misrepresenting the Big Bang with the claim that star fusion was necessary to produce the first elements.
3. Kyle - a youtuber who, in response to the nomination, deleted his video calling evolution "crazy" and issued a retraction claiming it was an "inside joke".
4. Matt Powell - for misrepresenting the Big Bang with the claim that the singularity was full of particles which exploded.
5. James Tour - for claiming organic material can't preserved in dinosaur bones as it only survives "a few days" in water.
6. Michael Behe - for using the long debunked mousetrap analogy for irreducible complexity.

7th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards (2023-24)

Nominations for the 7th Annual Golden Crockaduck Awards opened on December 15th 2023 with an announcement from Hadfield on the Potholer54 YouTube channel.

Winner of the 7th Annual Golden Crockaduck Award: iamLucid for his "prodigous outpouring of myths combined with his passionate and convincing delivery."

Nominees:

1. Tucker Carlson - nominated for Joe Rogan Experience #2138 - Tucker Carlson and Tucker SLAPS Evolution | And He's Right.
2. Jeffrey Tompkins - nominated for They Lied to Us? (Humans & Chimps: Part 1) | The Creation Podcast: Episode 40.
3. Answers in Genesis Canada - nominated for This One Thing Will Make You Believe in Noah’s Flood.
4. Lines of Evidence - nominated for Origin of Language: The Truth Revealed and How it is Proof That God Exists.
5. iamLucid - nominated for Evolution: School’s Biggest Lie
6. Mudfossil University - nominated for We now Have Proof of Mudfossils which are Ancient Perfect HUMAN Like Fossil Preservation and Dragon Carcass Academic Review Requested.

Amenakin and DMCA

In September 2011, Potholer54 nominated vlogger Amenakin for the Golden Crocoduck Awards. Potholer54 made a video refuting the video Amenakin made that won her the nomination. Potholer54 chose Amenakin not only because she was a creationist, but also because she was one of the few female creationist vloggers. Potholer54 was not being misogynistic; rather he held that for many years the nominees had overwhelmingly been men and he simply wanted to redress the balance. Amenakin is also a Muslim cosmetic saleswoman with thousands of YouTube subscribers.

Shortly after Potholer54's rebuttal video was posted, it was falsely DMCAed by Amenakin. Her supporters (the vast majority were theists) argued Potholer54 attacked her religion. However, Potholer54's video made no such attack on Islam; rather its main focus was on the theory of evolution. Amenakin's arguments against the theory of evolution came from a book by noted creationist and Holocaust denier Harun Yahya. Potholer54 argued that if he had read a propaganda book claiming Islam was evil, Amenakin and many Muslims would be frustrated that he took that road rather than actually read the Qur'an — Potholer54 argued the former was exactly what Amenakin did: she read a propaganda book rather than reading an actual science journal or text.

As a result of the DMCA, two of Potholer54's videos were taken down. The Streisand effect immediately kicked in, and the atheist community on YouTube vastly mirrored the videos to keep the material online. Potholer54 and Amenakin never came to an agreement, and YouTube initially rejected his counterclaim and said his videos were in violation of Amenakin's copyright. Lawyers consulted by Potholer54 said this would mean YouTube was rejecting its 'safe harbor' status.

Potholer54 reported this decision to YouTube's legal department and other possibly interested parties, and, lo and behold, Amenakin's claim of copyright violation was deemed in error and Potholer54's videos were restored, without penalty to his account. Potholer54 made sure to note that Amenakin and he never came to an agreement, other than on the gross prejudice and abuse some people were flinging around.

Climate change

Potholer is a well-known defender of climate change facts and has made many well-researched and properly cited rebuttal videos explaining when and where denialists are wrong. Potholer explains how greenhouse gases work, looks at alternative theories to climate change, and debunks the huge number of urban myths that are zipping round the Internet, not to mention how rapidly Gore's Law is demonstrated, mainly by climate change denialists. In 2017, right-wing "comedian" Steven Crowder argued with Hadfield over a Louder with Crowder episode titled "Top 5 'Climate Change' Myths". Crowder's arguments were baseless. Following this, Crowder challenged Hadfield to a debate. Hadfield refused because no topic or time of day was proposed and therefore a formal debate could not be prepared. Updates as to the debate discussions were brought up in subsequent Hadfield videos. Haldfield agreed to participate in a livestream debate scheduled for April 27, but Crowder failed to appear.

COVID-19

Hadfield released many videos about the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, beginning in March 2020. Topics covered included the death rate, COVID-19 lockdowns, hydroxychloroquine as an unproven treatment, the World Health Organization, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, and the COVID-19 vaccine. One topic he paid especial attention to was the COVID-19 "lab leak theory", which he posted several videos about.

External links

• Potholer54's channel on YouTube
• "How my YouTube channel is converting climate change sceptics", written by Hadfield and published in The Guardian