Credit: Harry Campbell

The role that so-called quants play in the financial world is analogous to the role batfish play in keeping coral reefs tidy. Just as batfish do not construct the reef but are essential to its health, quants do not create the structure financial markets depend on but do preserve the conditions that make markets function. So it would be misleading to suggest that quants were responsible for this summer's meltdown in the subprime-mortgage market or for the broader troubles that followed (see "The Blow-Up").

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