Where's the Theory for Software Engineering?

Darwin's theory of natural selection, Maxwell's equations, the theory of demand and supply; almost all established academic disciplines place great emphasis on what their core theory is. This is not, however, the case in software engineering. What is the reason behind the software engineering community's apparent indifference to a concept that is so important to so many others?

What Is Software Engineering Theory?

Software engineering, however, isn't overly concerned with its core theory. If asked, the community surely couldn't give a coherent answer about which is the most important one. Candidates might include theories with significant scope, such as formal systems theory, decision theory, organization theory, or theory of cognition. Collections of propositions might also be suggested, such as Alan Davis's 201 Principles of Software Development (McGraw-Hill, 1995), Frederick P. Brooks's propositions in The Mythi- cal Man-Month (Addison-Wesley, 1975), or SWEBOK (A. Abran et al., Eds., IEEE, 2004). Specialized models such as Cocomo might also be candidates. We suspect that you'll disagree with most of these proposals, but that just proves our point about the lack of consensus. Still, why are so many other fields explicit with their theories while software engineering is not?