Who can resist an article with the word “chimp” in the title? However, “If you ever feel like killing your neighbour, a chimp can tell you why” is more than just a fun trans-species romp; it addresses important issues of diversity and assimilation.

We learn that chimps and humans both behave according to the tribal instinct that emphasizes group identity. No amount of sensitivity training or celebrating diversity will change that fact. Human beings feel safer around people similar to themselves, who are easily recognizable as part of "us" rather than "them."

The psychologist Judith Rich, in her book The Nurture Assumption, explained how separate group identities are maintained when different cultures share the same urban space. It is a matter of critical mass. When a single Muslim family, say, inhabits a northern town, it acclimatises to northern culture, chip butties and all. But once a school contains sufficient numbers of Muslim children, they forge their own separate, potentially paranoid, identity.

The lesson of science is that a heterogeneous society aspiring to internal peace must follow the melting pot and induct all children into a common culture. That may involve flag worship and other embarrassing ceremonies, but the celebration of diversity may be, biologically, a mistake.

The idea of “flag worship” is odd: perhaps the author means the persistent fondness which Americans have for their patriotic symbols. The writer, Terence Kealey, is a British academic, a fact which may explain the sniffy remark.

At any rate, the points Dr. Kealey makes about diversity are all the more important because they are presented within a scientific context. Sociological research shows that humans normally develop a group identity based on defense against the Other. Not good news for multiculturalism.

It would be nice if public policy were based on a realistic assessment of human nature rather than a stubborn insistence on fantasies of blissful universality. For example, the multiple race riots , between blacks and hispanics in Los Angeles high schools last spring were sadly foreseeable, despite the thick diversity ideology throughout California schools. Education, more than any other institution, should be emphasizing civic assimilation instead of diversity, for the good of all.

You have to see it to believe it.

Go to the Republican National Committee website . (www.rnc.org) Then click on the “Photo Gallery” located directly above the picture of George W. Bush and John Roberts.

The gallery consists of six photographs…all featuring Hispanics!

They are: Bush with Antonio Saca, president of El Salvador; Laura Bush with a Hispanic primary school student ; Bush at a White House Cinco de Mayo celebration (my favorite) ; Bush speaking at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce ; Bush with Vicente Fox (no photo gallery is complete without Fox); and Bush looking on while Alberto Gonzales is sworn in as Attorney General.

This insulting collection makes it painfully clear to American whites, blacks and Asians: as far as George W. Bush is concerned, we do not count.

You can email the RNC, [info@gop.com]or phone them at 202-863-8500. That might be more fun, anyway.

Hat tip to John Playfair, president, Washingtonians for Immigration Reform and John from Salem, member, Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

The British newsweekly The Economist prides itself on being the smart news source for the global overclass. (It calls its new lifestyle advice spin-off magazine Intelligent Life.) But, The Economist sure can be dumb about immigration. A reader sends me this excerpt from its article “The Americano Dream:

AMERICA is going through one of its periodic bursts of high immigration. According to the Census Bureau, the country is home to about 34m people born abroad, half as many again as ten years ago. It is also going through one of its periodic panics about the subject.

But, as seen from Planet Economist, there’s nothing to worry about::

“New arrivals [i.e., immigrants] tend to head for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and other cities. Over half the immigrants first settle in one of these gateways, and two-thirds of the foreign-born population live in states surrounding them… As it happens, these preferences are extremely fortunate for America as a whole, because the melting pots are precisely the places that domestic migrants have been leaving in droves.”

Apparently, The Economist believes the reason that millions of native-born Americans have fled the coast of California over the last dozen years is because they suddenly grew tired of year-round sunshine, mild temperatures, low humidity, and no mosquitoes. Their leaving couldn’t possibly have anything to do with immigration. Thank God for all these immigrants doing us a huge favor by moving into the Golden State, or otherwise Los Angeles and San Francisco would be unpopulated wastelands that looked like a neutron bomb had hit them.