To me, a scientist is someone who engages in research with generalizable results.
That would exclude someone who does experiments and analysis, but only applies established methods to a particular problem. Call them an analyst, perhaps, but science is an ongoing dialog that they are not participating in.
I think that's part of why many consider it really presumptuous for 'data scientists' to call themselves such. Some of them are certainly developing new methods and engaging in a kind of dialog that is definitely science. Others are addressing business needs with a new sort of analysis, drawing on the field but not giving back to it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it does seem like that pursuit is different enough to bother calling it something else.
More recently, a lot of scientists worked to figure out atomic energy. Most, in likelihood, we do not know the names of anymore.
I think of it as musicians. If you define musician to be rockstar, there are not nearly as many as if you include school teachers, symphony players, conductors, etc. Yet, for most people, this later set would definitely be considered a musician.
Now... I deserve to be literally roasted for some of the other mistakes above. I should know throw versus through... Not even pronounced the same...
I mean, I get it. You would like it for the word to remain some pure version of meaning that it actually never had. Similar to getting upset that people using the word literally in a very figurative sense.
The relevant question on this style of article is not about word smithing.
That said, I'm in a field where we often through the title engineer on people, but we don't know why.