> Quant finance doesn't claim to be devising grand theories about how the world operates

What do you base this on?

What's quintessential quant finance? Black-Scholes and no-arbitrage pricing. Don't you agree it's much more of a tool than a theory of how the world works.

> What's quintessential quant finance? Black-Scholes and no-arbitrage pricing

This is a bad model to pick to exemplify physics envy given it’s based on thermodynamic dispersion.

The term “physics envy” broadly applies to all social sciences lacking a mathematical basis. It’s a criticism of using math where it doesn’t belong. That hasn’t really fit (until very recently) with economics. It’s been a classic complaint about quantitative finance’s loftier visions of universality.