A Brief History of Time is ‘wrong’, Stephen Hawking told collaborator

Agreed that its a material development (no pun intended  ).

Still, the whole thing is silly.  Hawking musing on these things is really no different from a babbling fool doing so in the town square.  Neither is more qualified nor more expert on the topic than the other.  So why so many have simply traded priests (theologians for physicists) on these topics just stupefies me.  Of course they don't see it this way.  I used to go 'round and 'round with some of our resident skeptics on the "faith" they placed in their priests (i.e., scientists).  They didn't see the promissory note of science's supposed ultimate ability to explain things as faith.  When, of course, it is.

I am of two minds on this. One the one hand I agree that someone being a physicist - or any other profession - doesn't mean they have a better grasp on the kinds of questions we often discuss here.

However, OTOH, in terms of giving some explanation that is satisfying having physics and the other sciences provides an anchor to what might otherwise be a plethora of views that are mere flights of fancy. For example it makes me feel better that Donald Hoffman is trying to reconcile his Idealist-esque views of Conscious Agents building reality with Quantum Physics, because it provides some path toward experimental verification or at least some grounding of what would otherwise be one more belief system among the incredible number we already have.

Unfortunately our human history has led to a deep antagonism between science [and] religion, at least in certain parts of the world. This has led to people's association of science with the materialist metaphysics even though the two should be separate.

This change in Hawking, before he passed away, is one step in moving beyond that antagonism. Especially given Hawking's stature as a scientific communicator to the public.