It is not selfish to do what you are good at and then to show a degree of humility about other things—including politics and other fields of expertise.
From 1996: “Catholics and other Christians need to take into more explicit account in their sense of existence in a universe of which they form a more and more operational part.”
It is not surprising that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, an eminent paleontologist, got himself in trouble with church officials and his Jesuit superiors.