The Maturity of Engineering Disciplines

I came across a classic article by John Berardi, The Winning Formula. It briefly describes the history of the weight loss industry. Therein, he states that the macronutrient makeup of food was discovered around the beginning of the twentieth century. He then goes on to say that, "there is very little that is new", the fad diets have all been there done that and failed their victims during the course of the most miserable century in human history.

The implication seems to be (although this is not definite) that dieting is a mature discipline, and wild fads no longer have a place. This got me thinking (always a bad idea). Engineering is a highly scientific discipline, virtually untainted by commercialism and popularism. Yet we are still learning by trial and error how to build bridges which don't fall down. What can we say for dieting, whose scientific underpinnings (most of which are still unknown) are barely a hundred years old?

What, indeed, can we say for the software industry? The youngest of all engineering disciplines, it is no wonder that IT projects are blowing up left, right and centre. Even Borland, who want to lead with the blather about fixing it all, can't do a half-way decent job with their own products.