The empirical success of the Black-Scholes-Merton model was a historically contingent process in which the model itself played a constitutive role. To say that is in no way to diminish the brilliant achievement of Black, Scholes, and Merton; it would be a curious prejudice to see a theory that changed the world (as their theory did) as inferior to one that merely reported on it. Rather, it is to assert that the model was a theoretical innovation, not simply an empirical observation; that the model's relation to the market was not always passive, but sometimes active; that its role was not always descriptive, but sometimes performative, even in the strongest, Barnesian sense. An engine, not a camera.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 1165