I don't think Richard Dawkins has ever had being a scientist as his foremost merit. What Dawkins has done very well is to popularise evolutionary biology in several books. It isn't as if he came up with all the theories that he describes in those books.
It wouldn't really matter if Dawkins had never been in a lab in his life or ever done any field work, his books are still well written and give a good insights into of a number of elements of evolutionary biology.
I also don't see why a scientist should recuse themself from political activism, perhaps if more scientists took an active interest in politics we might see more attention paid to getting science funding back as an important issue that the political parties actually cared about, or at least get some indication that politicians don't just see science as convenient window dressing to drape over the policies they want to rubber stamp to keep Rupert Murdoch happy.
TTFN,
WK
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