Another factor contributing to the tendency to deny the assumption of a fixed human nature was that the concept has so often been abused as a shield behind which the most inhuman acts are committed.
Ultravox star Midge Ure, a Save the Children ambassador, recently returned to Ethiopia 25 years after the 1984 famine which prompted him to create Band Aid with Bob Geldof.
But that was then. Now Mr. Lewis is drawing fire for overpaying for Merrill, whose gaping losses prompted Bank of America to seek a second rescue from Washington.
This similarity in density has long prompted speculation that the Moon split away from a rapidly rotating Earth, but this idea founders on two observations.
"It's a very clear-cut case of re-evolution because of the large time span," said John Wiens, the Stony Brook biologist who authored the paper in the journal evolution.