I never said that, where the hell did I say he pushed anything? All I'm saying is he's shown to be insanely productive and effective and I think he can catch up to the body of research (created and shared by those hundreds of scientists) to become a real contributor very quickly.

FWIW, "seriously contributing to this kind of problem" sounds basically the same as "pushing the envelope" to me. They both suggest contributing something novel and useful.

They are basically the same thing.

What are not basically the same thing are "he started seriously contributing to this kind of problem after a week in the woods" and "he spent a week in the woods a year ago and is ready to start contributing now. A year after that week in the woods."

If you consider the quality of most academic research papers, then some insults are called for...

To be fair, they said proficient and not world class or inventing new material.

You seem to have a very blase understanding of scientific progress and genius. The fact that hundreds of world class scientists have been working in a field for decades does not at all mean that a genius can't come along and make groundbreaking progress. That's the very definition of genius, someone that makes a leap "off the path" that nobody before him could make.