There’s a lot to be said for that, for sure.
Then, by your criterion, Galileo was not a scientist, nor was Kepler, Copernicus, or Archimedes.
When he was at the University of Berlin, someone relayed some bit of academic gossip to Einstein about how A had not properly credited B in a published paper. Einstein laughed in his face. He held academic politics and pretense in contempt.
I wonder what he would have made of 0bama and our various and sundry public intellectuals?