You have a very restrictive, and frankly naive view, of what constitutes science and what is engineering. There is not a clear-cut distinction (same as with "pure" and applied mathematics), not royal line which clearly separates the disciplines.It is a continuum. Were Penzias and Wilson doing science or engineering? What about Barden or Marconi or Nakamura? What about the guys at the Manhattan project? God knows engineers suffer a lot of the "let-me-tell-you-how-your-field-should-work" syndrome, but guess what? So does physicists, so it has nothing to do with understanding what science is all about and more with overestimate our success in transferring our knowledge,experience and capability to a different field.
