“Computer Science” not a real science?

Indeed, none of the disciplines that have the word "science" in their names are sciences! ("social science" is another example... definitely not a science!)

Technically, CS isn't science, but rather a form of pure and applied mathematics.

I think it's mostly engineering, somewhat mathematics, and a little bit science.

CS papers introduce new ideas, often with proofs (maths). They also incrementally improve the way things are done (engineering).

CS practitioners try to solve real-world problems to maximise value and minimise costs (engineering again).

Science is about investigating the unknown, formulating hypotheses and checking them against measurements. While measurement is done in computing, it usually boils down to a fairly engineering-centric set of metrics (how fast is this algorithm and how much memory does it use?)

Here are some made-up sciencey-type headlines that we don't see:

  * Scientists closer to understanding how a CPU works.

  * Researcher discovers first non-Turing-complete programming language.
  
  * Macs transmit 10% more JSON data than PCs.

  * Replication study fails to compress data using tar.

It's not a natural science, but it is most certainly a formal science, in the same way that mathematics and philosophy have been traditionally been considered to be.