Using machine learning is indeed more like science than engineering. After all it is just building a model based on data that you have seen. The advantage of us

Using machine learning is indeed more like science than engineering. After all it is just building a model based on data that you have seen. The advantage of using ML is the model can be arbitrarily complex and something you'd never be able to come up with manually. But that model is only a part of a larger project. To the engineer it seems no different to designing a solution in the context of accepted scientific theories. You can't engineer the theories, they are accepted based on evidence. But you can build the project around it.