He also speculated on a totally goofy and unsupported "multiple universes" theory in a effort to deal the anthropic principle.
Don’t get me wrong - Hawking is BRILLIANT.
But he’s handicapped by his absolute insistence on materialism.
If you have a blindspot that you absolutely refuse to explore, even though the evidence points there, you’re going to start having to twist yourself in knots to avoid that conclusion. And, I suppose the more brilliant you are, the more convoluted those knots are going to be.