I hate that whole intro - the first four sentences - so much. It’s nothing but unsupported assumptions. Basically, a strawman that they can do battle with in the paper. Not an auspicious start.
He's the axis of this particular group of researchers, being the most senior at the place where they all met, Johns Hopkins.
So this is less a straw man and more a quick reminder to his peers: "Right, so, remember this particular thread we've spent the last 40 years hashing out, here we've got another contribution to that particular conversation."
65 years is a long time to be beating your head against an obvious dead end.
The article intro presents the claims as self-evident, when they’re not at all.
But, someone rise pointed out this may have been a dig at those attitudes, which makes more sense.