Actually, No I would not since he seems to go outside his knowledge base, gets political, and make some false statements. Check his validated Twitter feed for some examples. Now if Feynman was still around, I would trust him since he had a record of giving honest opinions.
It's not Neil's beliefs on politics that people care about. Instead, we care when he makes statements about the field of physics. Not a phenomena, but the field itself. It's because those statements can be incredibly useful to a lay audience.
Imagine hearing this claim: "Most psychologists nowadays use cognitive behavioral therapy, or some kind of statistically-backed similar therapy involving cognitive work, while psychodynamic approaches have almost all but died except in southern California."
This doesn't make a claim about psychological phenomena. Instead this is a claim about the field of psychology. And it's incredibly useful because you don't have to understand the merits of one therapeutic approach over another. Just by hearing about trends of expert behavior, you can develop useful guesses.
If I heard that a dental procedure had fallen out of favor among dentists, I would use that information. As a layperson, I don't need to know about the technicalities of some dental procedure. And I am quite aware that experts can talk me into any way they want. What I want to hear is a representation on the field of dentistry.
I think it is THIS function that we want out of an expert scientific journalist or propagator. We should want someone who can represent the temperature of the field, as opposed to merely making a claim on a phenomena. I trust Neil to say that "most physicists believe X" without spin or deceit.
"I trust Neil to say that "most physicists believe X" without spin or deceit."
See, that's the problem, I don't trust him to say that without spin or deceit. He makes claims about certain politicians making statements they didn't make (e.g. 360 degree turn or taking part of a quote out of time and context) which leads me to believe I cannot trust anything he says without independent confirmation. He has become a pundit not a teacher.
