In the period in which much of option theory was developed, options were "specialized and relatively unimportant financial securities" (Merton 1973a, p. 141) and were stigmatized by being associated widely with gambling and with market manipulation. However, option pricing seemed a tantalizingly straightforward "normal science" problem, in the terminology of Kuhn (1970). With an established model (the log-normal model) of how stock prices fluctuate, it did not seem too difficult to work out how much an option on that stock should cost.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 140