Ben Davidson

Learn more from the Center for Media and Democracy's research on climate change.

Ben Davidson created Suspicious Observers (Suspicious0bservers), a pseudoscience YouTube channel. An ex-lawyer, Davidson has no science training. He has a degree in economics from Denison University and a Juris Doctorate from Capital University Law School. Davidson's ideas have been debunked by climate scientists. He is behind various websites where he sells his scribblings and tickets to his "annual conference". Davidson makes far-fetched claims about dozens of scientists attending his conferences and conversing secretly with him, but there has only been one notable name at any of his meetings — John Coleman, another notable climate denier. In summary, this man and his followers are delusional.

Pillars of bollocks

The Suspicious0bservers claim to have four pillars of success, which in reality, are four concepts outside of mainstream science with no support from any publishing scientist. They claim that the Sun plays a role in earthquake processes, that electrical activity on Earth can help you "predict" where earthquakes will occur, that climate change is massively flawed due to improper accounting of 'solar forcing', and that dark matter is actually normal matter we can't see.

Climate change

Let's begin with climate change. His opposition to climate science appears to be motivated entirely by errors in fact. He claims (incorrectly) that the hundreds of solar-forcing papers published over the last few decades are not currently modeled in the data, and also claims that only wave energy (not particle energy) is modeled into the climate as proof that the natural-variability attribution to the atmospheric/oceanic energy budget is inaccurate.

Dark matter

Davidson and most of the Suspicious0bservers mob have decided that dark matter does not exist. However, the scientific consensus is that dark natter must account for a large portion of the universe.

Earthquakes

In 2015 Davidson "published" a paper in a pay-for-play denier ("contrarian") journal claiming that the solar polar magnetic field, which has peaks in strength and polarity reversals over time, was correlated with M8+ earthquakes. Yet another theory with no support from real scientists.

Electroquakes

Davidson fantasizes about what he calls "electroquakes", and claims his ideas have influenced real scientists, pointing to several papers. But none of these papers cite him or his ideas, and there is no evidence at all to suggest that he had any influence.