[the_only_law]

> but people see "science" as having a higher social status than "engineering".

I wonder why, I mean generally engineers are paid more than scientists, specially towards the bottom of the respective fields and money seems to be a big driver of social status.

[dusted]

The reason engineers are paid more is that they're a safer bet for moderate(to high) value creation, while actual science is not guaranteed ROI in any reasonable time frame.

The reason science has a higher social status is probably because most passionate intellectuals agree that it is indeed nobler and more important work to discover fundamentals and increase the sum of human knowledge than to increase profit margins of multinationals.