[Daniel_Newby]

Engineers often do pure experiments. It was EEs that came up with ROC curves, and good data sheets for electronic devices commonly show histograms and statistics for operating parameters. Hard drive optimization is largely about measuring the data density versus signal-to-noise ratio curve, whatever shape it happens to be, then picking a suitable error correcting code. Chemical process optimization is balls-out experimentation, especially when compounds insist on crystallizing in inconvenient forms. Civil engineers measure degradation to know when bridges need attention.

I think the difference is that engineers must often be satisfied with boring things that must be useful, while scientists aspire to interesting things that may be useless.

[djcapelis]

Since we have nowhere to go but more pedantic, I argue that engineers are not infrequently called upon to do science, just as many scientists are often called upon to do engineering.

Whether you call yourself an engineer or a scientist I would agree, has a lot to do with whether your goal at the end of the day is to produce something that works or something that fascinates. As someone who has the luxury to have a job doing the latter, I don't stop seeing myself as a scientist even when I happen to be doing some engineering work on one of my experiments.