Yes, some of them did screw up, the same way that early physicists screwed up.  Quantitative finance, as we know it, is still a very young field.  There are going to be hiccups along the way.  Knowledge is not developed in a vacuum.<p>We had Archimedes looking at physics over 2000 years ago.  It took until the late 17th century for Newton to develop the calculus, a tool that allowed us to really start advancing physics.  Whether you want to start "quantitative finance" with Black and Scholes, Markowitz, or even Bachelier, we have had at most a little over 100 years of trying to pin this beast down.  I think people fail to realize that.