marx and engel's project was originally conceived as a science in the true sense of the word, in the way we would consider physics or biology to be a science. But forcing abstract, universal laws (something which is essential to science) onto human civilization and development is extremely difficult, if not impossible to do in a productive way.

That's where it's uniquely suited to my scientific work. As far as I've read, there are only three formally declared laws in Marx/Engels' work which Engels ascribed to dialectical materialism: the transformation of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites, and the negation of the negation. Using Marxism as an analytical tool in my scientific work, those three laws are essential considerations. I have to understand why something is the way it is and what changing a variable will do to it and everything it interacts with. Using Marxism as my overall ontological system, they mesh perfectly with my scientific worldview. Everything is a dynamic subject in a greater ecosystem bound to thermodynamics. I can't take an idea from Capital and apply it 1:1 as a law of modern economics, but goddamn their philosophical work holds up beautifully in the natural sciences and is only hamstrung by being the first real attempt at studying those things in a radical way.