I think scott is kinda stretching the argument thin. They are accomplished in the sense of being notable enough to have Wikipedia pages about them, but being an astronomer, a historian, or being a chair of some royal society is a far cry from codifying the theory of evolution. It's like saying someone is an engineer is a major accomplishment when his dad founded a fortune 100 tech company. Yes, an engineer is a good profession, but far from being the CEO of google or something like that. The son being an engineer is noteworthy only because his dad is CEO/founder of a huge company.