Believing in alchemy isn't quite the slam dunk you think it is, since at the time we didn't even know atoms existed, lol. It turns out that people who have massive gaps in the information available to them come to wrong conclusions sometimes, lol.

You're just restating the position that I've already argued a ton elsewhere in the thread, so instead I'll ask for a moment of introspection.

Do you believe you would have taken this stance if Elon Musk hadn't taken the opposite one?

You are currently arguing that Isaac Newton wasn't a scientist until that moment someone found his notebooks, at which point he magically became one. You're arguing that none of the people who did the research on nuclear physics during WW2 that led to the development of the atomic bomb were scientists, since none of that research was intended for publication or peer review.

Would you have said Oppenheimer wasn't a scientist outside of the context of this image we're responding to?

At this point I just feel like I'm arguing against people who are knowingly taking a position they never would have taken if not to "own Elon Musk." It's the knee jerk reaction of "I can't agree with that person I hate, so I've gotta argue the opposite."

Which, look, I get the hate and like to see him dunked on as much as the next guy, but it's the definition of arguing in bad faith if you don't actually believe the thing you're arguing for.