Engineers precisely specify a problem and then build a solution that's correct to within a tolerance. I'm afraid I don't see the resemblance to programming.

A very precise definition of an engineer? Engineers build tools. Artists build amusements. Scientists build ideas. Programmer = Engineer.

By those definitions I'd consider Software Development as Sciartiginering. It's easier to say developer though.

I have done all three and the motivations and results of each are distinct. If you are Sciartiginering you are not building software. Maybe ASCII art?

You could describe programming that way too, though the "within a tolerance" would probably have to be about input coverage rather than output/behavior.

That depends on the program, I suppose. Some programs require more engineering than others. I think you could make a very good argument for the programmers at Google being engineers.

I disagree. I don't find many similarities between what I do and what a "real engineer" does. I do not consider myself an engineer; I write software. Nowhere in the 18 years I've been doing this for money have I met anybody that could explain what software engineering really is. Without a definition, the term to me is meaningless.

the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software.

That's what they'll teach you at engineering school. Not everyone who is writing software is engineering.