Several days ago, I watched this videotalk of Mary Shaw that tried to give an answer to the question is Software Engineering an Engineering discipline yet?
Dr. Shaw makes a parallelism with Civil Engineering that started as a empirical discipline and, thanks to strong scientific foundations, evolved to what we could call full engineering.
Software Engineering is not there yet. It needs more work and professionalization. Many of the so-called Software Engineers have no software engineering knowledge and/or skills and therefore software disasters happens. She even gives some examples of software failures like the Toyota unintended acceleration affaire, and the multiple identity thefts in our connected world.
At the end of the talk, she makes a good summary of the last years of advancements in Software Engineering and also drafts what it could be the future of our young discipline.
One hundred percent I recommend watching this videotalk to every Software Engineer.