He was making an absurd statement to prove a point. No need to go all Good Will Hunting on us.
My tirade had a point as well, though: post 20th century our collective intuitions have become wildly miscalibrated regarding which things in humanity’s understanding of the world are recent or obscure. It seems that the barrier of “advanced” mostly hasn’t shifted at all since high school became compulsory in most parts of the world, and as decades go by I can see this going from “a goddamn shame” to “existential threat to human culture”. I’m not even sure that hasn’t happened yet—already a high school teacher can rarely, if ever, thoroughly explain a recent development of their choice in their subject.