The definition of scientist is important: not the least of which is the mantle of "credibility" to lay people.
This is the proof, btw, that Climate Change is becoming a religion:
1) argument from authority
2) $$$$$
As Leon Lederman (physics Nobel, once director of Fermilab) said:
"Physics is not a religion. If it were, we'd have a lot easier time raising money."
And allowing the "priesthood" of science, with the allegiance to "scientism" to creep in (particularly as it gets co-opted by Marxists, much as liberation theology and seeding the seminaries with homosexuals attempted to co-opt the Catholic Church) will generate tremendous problems for the credibility of science as an institution, once it is clear that "scientists" were hoodwinking the public, and other scientists did not insistently put a stop to it.
Speaking of that, the Nobel to Gore (and to the IPCC, and to Obama, and ...Yasser Arafat!!?) threaten to diminish the prestige of a Nobel prize: throwing away the reputation and a pedigree painstakingly accumulated over a century, and throwing it away for some short-term cheap political leftist showboating.
Cheers!
“....generate tremendous problems for the credibility of science as an institution, “
I couldn’t agree with your point more
As for the difference between “engaging in science” and “being a scientist” it’s the science - the findings, the data, the conclusions, the willingness to lay everything out that is important, so it can be examined impartially, or with bias, for that matter.
So the former is most important, but one can’t be the latter without doing the former.