Ok, if you must, I actually agree that programmers should stop calling themselves engineers. Like I've said before here on HN, I don't think it helps us (programmers). We should own our title and wear it with pride. Taking someone else's title does two bad things - first, it opens programmers to the charge that they are insecure and are misappropriating someone else's hard earned title and reputation. Second, it may give engineers (the PE kind) the impression that they have some claim on software development. That last part is important, because I would prefer not to see software regulated by the PE exams (though my objection to this diminished greatly when they went to much more industry specific exams).
I consider software development to be a genuinely difficult task, one that can push very smart people past the edge of their own capabilities. It can be intensely creative, and the stakes can be very high. However, I think we should just consider it to be its own thing.
Now, all that said, I'll go back to my first statement: eh. In a world of train engineers, special effects or sound engineers, financial engineers, pft. Calling someone who reads a book on PHP (or buys one but doesn't read it) and throws up a bug ridden website an "engineer" seems a bit of a stretch, but is it really so outrageous to call someone who has spend decades learning to design highly complex, scalable, performant software applications that need to be reliable in a high stakes environment an "engineer"? Is that really such an egregious use of the word?
Like I said, I'd rather software developers redirect that impressive accomplishment back to the word "programmer" or "developer", but in the end, this whole thing is completely overblown.