Whenever a famous scientist I respected turns out to be a total heel, it bothers me.

[LeftishBrit]

4. I think many scientists deteriorate when they are persuaded to, or decide, to act as general pundits

and get out of their areas of expertise.

Susan Greenfield is an extreme example.

Also while this may be ageist, and certainly doesn't apply to everyone over 80, it may be that Goodall is less cognitively able than she once was.

In any case, I don't think this affects Goodall's credibility in her own field. Just another example of how scientists, just like artists, musicians, novelists, etc. are not necessarily wise about everything. We don't assume that a musician who spouts some nonsense about something outside of music thereby becomes a bad musician; the same is true IMO of scientists.

Two of my most admired scientists as scientists were the ethologists Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen. But neither was exactly perfect outside their field. Tinbergen wrote some serious rubbish about autism, which probably contributed to the development of 'holding therapy'; and as for Lorenz, he was actually a Nazi before and during WW2.