There's also the fact that zero science actually happens in a Computer Science department. But since our society worships science, everything has to be science or it's no good! Even stuff that isn't science!
That is absolutely wrong. I am a PhD student in Computer Science, and I strongly consider what I do more science than engineering. Machine learning is all about making a hypothesis, implementing it, testing it, and observing the results. There is a pressure toward only publishing positive results (no one want to learn about an algorithm that doesn't work), but it's still very much a science.
The same kind of experiments happen in lots of other CS sub-fields: high performance computing, security, etc.
It's a science in the same way that math is a science. A "formal science" seems appropriate. My school considered it a natural science, which is just stupid.
Note that most computer "science" classes are stuff like learning java, learning UML, learning software engineering. This stuff is barely engineering, let alone science. It has more in common with a fine art.
Algos and data structures etc are arguably a form of math, depending on the class most likely applied math.
It's not a natural science, and what you're doing is similar to the way artists will use, say, a picture of a DNA molecule to create a cool painting. If they use scientific principles in their art, does that make it a science?
No - what you are describing is a "craft" - a very informal kind of engineering. Architecture is not a science either.
In some countries, there are "Exact Sciences" (basically Math and all the derivatives like statistics and computing) and "Natural Sciences" (like physics, chemistry and biology).
But it's all semantics, the important thing (and the thing most people seem to agree upon) is that the status of CS as Science depends of the status of Mathematics as Science.
Social sciences and political science are FAAAR more scientific than computer science.
Computer science makes stuff like psychology, sociology and anthropology look rigorous. They actually do experiments and case studies and use real world evidence you know!
CS papers have more in common with Literature than they do with the widely disparaged soft sciences like psychology.
