How actuarial science "made a difference"

I left the actuarial field primarily because I thought it made no impact on anyone. After reading this article from Wired, I know I was wrong. Actuarial science did make a huge impact on everyone in the world, though the impact is negative, and hugely so.

According to the article, it was David X. Li, a bright Chinese mathematician with a "master's in actuarial science and a PhD in statistics", who invented the formula that underlies credit default swaps. The formula was originally published in the paper "On Default Correlation: A Copula Function Approach" in 2000. The formula somehow made its way to the real world and was soon "adopted by everybody from bond investors and Wall Street banks to ratings agencies and regulators."

However, Li is apparently innocent. He was just a geek who wanted to publish in a journal. In fact, he was quoted to have said in 2005, "The most dangerous part is when people believe everything coming out of [the formula]."

Here's the link to the article: Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
It even has a brief description on the actuarial/statistical concepts used in the deadly formula.