Ok, I interpreted it wrongly. But I still don't agree. I've worked in academia and a NASA research center and never did I observe a respected scientist making such an observation. I know that's anecdotal evidence, but I don't know what else to fallback on.
I always thought that the old tired line of "X is the core science!" was a trap that only mathematicians, physicists, and ignorant grad students fell into. I wasn't aware that any respected (and respectful) scientists actually took it seriously.
I think perhaps you're still thinking of a value judgement. To me, it is obvious that we have different fields of science for different scales. For example, there are many aspects of physics that a biologist takes for granted or doesn't even reason about when considering biological systems. They may need to reason about, say, chemistry from first principles. But I would be surprised for many biologists to have to apply much reasoning from quantum mechanics.
Again, this is not a value judgement. A similar thing exists with computers. People who write web applications depend on user-application infrastructure, who depend on systems applications, which depend on operating systems, which depends on computer architecture, which depends on materials engineering and so on. As a systems programmer, I regularly reason about operating systems and computer architecture. But I never reason about the properties of the materials that make the hardware. The computer architects, though, may have to reason about the materials, as it can provide constraints to their designs.
As a general principle, it is always good to have at least some knowledge of 2 levels of abstraction below (and above) where you work, because they tend to leak!
I always thought that the old tired line of "X is the core science!" was a trap that only mathematicians, physicists, and ignorant grad students fell into. I wasn't aware that any respected (and respectful) scientists actually took it seriously.