Did the dying Stephen Hawking really mean to strengthen the case for God?
In his final paper on the multiverse hypothesis, the world’s best-known atheist made a supernatural creator more plausibleSource: The Guardian, by Philip Goff
Scientists have discovered a surprising fact about our universe in the past 40 years: against incredible odds, the numbers in basic physics are exactly as they need to be to accommodate the possibility of life. If gravity had been slightly weaker, stars would not have exploded into supernovae, a crucial source of many of the heavier elements involved in life. Conversely, if gravity had been slightly stronger, stars would have lived for thousands rather than billions of years, not leaving enough time for biological evolution to take place. This is just one example – there are many others – of the “fine-tuning” of the laws of physics for life.
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In Hawking’s older version of the multiverse hypothesis, there is great variety among the laws in different universes. In some gravity is stronger, in some weaker, and so on. However, physicists have come to see problems with such a heterogenous multiverse, especially if the number of universes is infinite. We work out the predictions of a given multiverse hypothesis by asking how probable our universe is according to that hypothesis. But if there is an infinite number of universes, that question becomes meaningless. And hence in his final paper, A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?, Hawking and his co-writer, Thomas Hertog, formulate strict limits to the kind of universes that populate the multiverse.
The problem is that the less variety there is among the universes, the less capable the multiverse hypothesis is of explaining fine-tuning. If there is a huge amount of variation in the laws across the multiverse, it is not so surprising that one of the universes would happen to have fine-tuned laws. But if all of the universes have exactly the same laws – as in Hawking and Hertog’s proposal – the problem returns, as we now need an explanation of why the single set of laws that govern the entire multiverse is fine-tuned.
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There is still hope for a scientific account of fine-tuning. However, by ruling out one of the two scientifically credible options for doing this, Hawking and Hertog have slightly strengthened the alternative explanation in terms of God. It is ironic that the atheist Hawking should, in his final contribution to the science, make God’s existence less improbable.
Read it all at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/07/stephen-hawking-god-multiverse-cosmology
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of ANY kind of proof regarding many scientific subjects, what sense does it make to dismiss out of hand just the one "hypothesis" that can make sense out of so much conjecture?
Doesn't scientific methodology consider a "hypothesis" to be valid until it is demonstrably proven to not be true? 
That's William of Okham (1285 - 1347 CE). Parsimony is one of the first principles in modern science.
One does not get to add hypotheses for no reason whatsoever. William's razor slices them right off.
The god of the gaps hypothesis makes no sense whatsoever. This is especially true because nobody has ever provided any kind of operational definition for god.
If people want to play in the science domain, we're going to hold them to the rules. The extent that folks ignore the rules or refuse to abide by them is the extent that they should be subject to ridicule.
We are not going to allow you to shoe-horn your gods into our scientific theories without supporting data. That just ain't gonna happen.
Sorry.
Great way to dismiss an argument!
Refuse to consider the possibility (that billions of the "obviously inferior" do!)
A rigid fundamentalist approach, but, hey - you can believe anything you want!
The god of the gaps argument is the absolutely, positively weakest argument theists employ. It also happens to be a very common one. It deserves only ridicule.
Another science rule. One doesn't get to just make shit up. In particular, this includes making up ones own rules.
You want to play science? First learn how it works, and how it doesn't. There's a few centuries of history of science one might want to read about. But I suggest beginning with 1800 CE and going forward.
Or view Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man, from the BBC (and PBS). That would be a well rounded start. Some of the science is out of date, but it holds up fairly well. It certainly holds up as to science history up to when it was filmed in the late 1960's CE.
That's another characteristic of science. Our theories change all the time, but to fit new data not for some capricious reason like accommodating some spooky god figure.
My best to you.
My response to OP was notably challenging as it should have been, given the argument presented.
This sort of thing always happens when a noted atheist dies. It happened with Carl Sagan. It even happened with Christopher Hitchens. It's a standard theist technique to speculate that the dead atheist just maybe wasn't really a non-believer. I am sure that is comforting to the theists, but atheists generally absolutely despise it.
Irrelevant to the article's (cited in the OP) god of the gaps argument.
Theists just know that their ever shrinking gods can be shoe-horned into the ever shrinking scientific gaps. It will really work this time. REALLY!!
Thanks for the Mugsy!
When things don't fit into your dogma, reject and dismiss them!
It's easy!
he is speaking to us from beyond the grave... 
Has taken a very personal dislike to me, with much name-calling.
It's the internet.
they can't even change water into wine...
