Folks this is why we have the scientific peer review process where the entire scientific community speaks to government policy and not individual scientists or academics.

If credentialed scientists and academics are not immunne from bias, partisanism, intimidation and all the other frailties of human nature.

The peer review process is designed to filter out such human frailties from important decision making.

So why on earth would you blindly take the word of two individual social scientists on what is good or appropriate for Australia in the long term with respect to refugees and population level.

Don't you think you should be taking into consideration what other scientists and academics say on these issue. Particularly ecologists who tend to have a wider view of population dynamics and sustainability.

Or is the intention of people is this forum to denigrate such eminent people like Sir David Attenborough because he/they disagree with lefist immigration ideology.

"GDP and economic indicators continue to rise"

That is rather meaningless - it does not mean that most Australians are better off on average.

The cost of living.......power bills, water bills, council rates,......are also rising dramatically. And that has largely been the result of our massive skilled immigrant intake over the past decade.

It may not be your Island Marilyn, but it is mine.

If I remember correctly Marilyn, from this or another forum, you are an older Australian.

You say we / I are selfish for saying no to Sri Lankens et el.

Well right back at you Marilyn!

You are all for earning kudos among your peer group for champoning the cause of refugees etc. Or earning your stairway to heaven or what ever else it is that is floating your boat.

But your life is nearly at its end and you no damn well that YOU wont have to live with the long term consequences for Australian society of declaring open borders.

So whose motives here are really driven by personal selfishness here MARILYN?????

Again right back at you MARILYN!

Where is your evidence that sri lankans have as low or lower fertility than Australians?????

What business is it of ours how many children they have?????

Well allow me to enlighten you.

Many of them are living in terrible poverty and seek to escape to Australia in order to demand a share of our pie. Which is a lot larger than their average share of the pie in Sri Lanka because we have had the good sense, good luck or a combination of both not to collectively breed like rabbits and foul our own nest.

If increasing numbers of them insist on demanding our charity then we ought to have a say what is driving these increasing numbers of Sri Lankens.

We should not be in the business of writing blank immigration cheques to sri lanka or any other third world nation that is unwilling to adequately curb their own collective fertility and help themselves.

Wilma, what do you think the definition of an asylum seeker is or don't you bother to find out.

It is simply a person outside their own country who seeks protection under international refugee laws.

They might not all be refugees needing that protection but they are all asylum seekers. There is no such thing as an illigitimate asylum seeker.

But expect many more Afghans when you read what the US is now doing to them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/for-afghan-troops-donkeys-are-the-new-helicopters/2012/11/08/d221c2de-28bd-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_story.html?hpid=z1

Greg, you are almost correct.
The only person allowed into this nation ought to be someone:
1/ Guaranteed to spend all their working life in an exporting industry; and:
2/ Doing a job that cannot be filled by someone already here.

This would not be a popular policy amongst our politicians. Why?
1/ Because some 30% of a politicians time is made up currying favour with constituents trying to import relatives and wives; and
2/ Because Pollies know that immigrants tend (on the margin) to vote for pollies of the party that was in, when they came in.

Your typical pollie thinks: "Damn the country! Nothing more important than my pension and perks!"

Our leaders, including those of The Conversation, fail to explain how 100s of Thousands of immigrants can possibly be viably keyed into both the international economy via our nation's cities when the nation's cities continue to hemorrhage money via imports of goods, services and the return of capital.

This has and was, never, ever sustainable.

It cannot be sustainable ecologically nor economically.

It is quite simply - Bent.

Ok Frank,

So I am going to run on the assumption that this is your argument, feel free to correct me if I've missed your logic.

1- Individuals who are granted asylum ends up working for an import company and almost none work for an export company ...

therefore

2 - well there is a bit of gap in your argument here but i am guessing that you are implying a money going out of the country rather than coming in due to drastically increasing our annual imports while reducing our annual exports

therefore

3- The direct result is no money to feed and care for our pensioners...

... have I got it?

Ok, well not having read actual data about employment destinations of individuals granted asylum I cannot claim to have any expert knowledge but I do find it hard to believe that 100% are employed in a importing industry. What about all the teachers, doctors, cleaners, tradesmen, artists, elderly care nurses .. etc? Surely those numbers would be significant enough to cut into that 100%.

Also, I would argue that the reason why there is no money for the poorest in our society has less to do with immigrants and lack of government funds, and more to do with the divide between the rich and the poor and fact that the biggest private companies are getting substantial government incentives and are paying the least tax.

If you are looking for are group that is draining our community coffers rather than contributing to them ... then these large corporations are a more obvious guess.... not asylum seekers.

@Lisa Scrimmager, you don't look around much do you?

Surprise me. Tell me that when you look up and down your street, you see a mass of folks who, via their efforts over a working lifetime, they'll be able to represent themselves as net exporters of goods and services! Thus able to justify their position in the Australian Economy. Surprise me Lisa.

You simply don't want to get it do you?

That to export, Australian cities don't need a bloating of its population.

That our collective problem is that we are subverting proper economic policy to subsidise import intensive industries, thus rendering us unable to look after people here, let alone anywhere else in the world.

The corporations you finger are those who bribe our political parties and politicians to bring in as many people as can be fit without causing mass riots, so they can sell them hospital beds, school class rooms, teachers, cars, housing, roads, airports etc, etc. In every case, leading to a negative impact on our Cities collective ability to export more than import.

Want new roads to and from the bloated western suburbs of Melbourne? Can't afford them? Why?
Answer: These areas are not internationally competitive and are subsidised in everything bought, built and consumed down there. Council Services, roads, houses, schools, etc - all subsidised! None of it sustainable.

Lisa, take some time and write down everything you buy, and everything you sell.
Who paid you? How did they get the money? What did you spend it on?
Unless you are in an unusual role, like most of us, you are a net drain on Australia's present and future.

As Flannery labelled - A Future Eater.

Look at our Newspapers. Circle any ad for an Australian sourced good or service in Green. Then circle ads for overseas owned or sourced goods or services in Red. What you'll see is a sea of Red.

Your views are given policy as it is now and results in a nation that cannot find internationally competitive roles for most of its workforce! Deny that! This is a trend that has been ongoing since mass immigration post WW2 which occurred beyond tariff walls and programs of mass subsidies. It has hit a critical tipping point now. No amount of Mining Boom can subsidise this tragedy forever. It has to end. The bill has to come in and be paid.

But, that'd be fun wouldn't it! You could do a Poor Man Europe and throw molotovs at riot police when all the subsidies are stopped. When the services stop. The pensions rolled back. The teachers sacked. Just like Greece and Spain.

I refer you to section 92 of the Immigration act.

About a year ago there was letter in the Canberra Times by someone sick of the whining of the asylum industry. The writer pointed out he had spent a year and a half in France with hardly space to move between the beds but he was grateful to have a roof over his head and enough to eat. The next time he was in the area he slept on the ground, next to his tank when he fought to liberate France. It took me a while to work out that he would have been a Spanish Republican Loyalist who escaped from Franco and then joined the Republican armored squadron which fought alongside the Free French and was actually the first Allied unit to reach Paris. After the war unable to return to Spain he migrated legally to Australia. Different times, different men. Now we have Australian falling in Afghanistan while Afghan males of military age country shop to get here.

The obvious answer is as some one else in here has suggested.

Do not keep them in detention.

We should unratify the UN refugee convention as it currently stands and immediately deport any illegal arrivals back to their country of original regardless of personal safety.

There are tens of millions of refugees in mortal danger.

Australia cannot take them all in and nor should we try.

And even if we did take in a few hundred thousand refugees per year it would make a negligeable difference to the refugee problem.

The only long term answer to this problem is global population control and population reduction in the short term.

Give them condoms and pills, not visas.

"If our riches didn't make us obliged to help then our complacency with the Sinhalese governments (war criminals) does."

What a bl00dy lefty hypocrit you are!

Let us follow this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion shall we then.

If you are rich then you have an obligation to give all your wealth away and reduce your own life to a similar level of misery to all those poor unfortunates.
The are hundreds of millions living in or close to absolute poverty.
Even if the west took in tens of millions of third worlders and gave away all its wealth to the rest it would make little or no difference to global poverty given the expected 9-10 billion global population by 2050.

And exactly how does this help global poverty in the long term????

The problem with you bleeding heart lefties is that you have little comprehension of the sheer scale of the over population problem.

And as Dr Albert Bartlett states, nor do you have any comprehension of the mathematical exponentional function.

Giving away our wealth and growing our population well beyond sustainable levels is not a long term solution to this problem.

Free pills and condoms etc and immediate deportation from the west is the only long term sustainable solution.

Tough love as they say!

That is a straw man argumnent and you damn well now it.

We are talking about non-citizens here.

And perhaps we should pursue a bit of tough love at home as well.

How about no government assistance for the third child and more. It might make those baby factory mums in the welfare suburbs think twice about dropping yet another baby.

Hunger strikes and self mutilation would be a starting point. Then doing the same thing to their children if that does not work.

If you are really committed to this notion that our wealth obigates us to help those less fortunate Steve, then what about you personal wealth and your personal resposbility????

How big is the house you are living in? Do you haev air conditioning? How many plasma tvs do you have? How many cars do you own.

What about you selling off some of your wealth and donating the proceeds to third world charities?

It is one thing to sit there and make pronouncements from your soap box about helping the third world.

But it is quite another to make signfciant personal sacrfices yourself and refrain from expecting others or the govenrment to do the same in place of yourself!!!!!

I can only conclude you are full of hot air and not really serious about charity!

Steve Brown,
what have battered wives got to do with this situation?

The proposal for immediate repatriation is put clearly and follows the logic of "denying the people smugglers a business model" so often referenced by your fellow lefties in Labor.

You know, the Labor Government who vilified Ruddock and Howard for succeeding in stopping the boats, ignored the warnings, and with a morally criminal level of culpability, a culpability that many on these pages share, Labor changed the laws to the cheers of these flat earth over population fans, and created a successful business model for the lawyers on shore here, and the drowners over in Indonesia.

The sight of a no nonsense, immediate repatriation from Christmas Island will stop the boats forever, avoid shenanigans on Nauru and Manus Island, and do it in a matter of weeks.

Poor man Europe, who are chronically unable to control their borders, will remain the magnet for the smugglers and their markets.

Well then Michael please enlighten me as to why we never hear these concerns from your lobby when you are collectively lecturing us on Australian selfishness towards illegal immigrants, and immigrants in general, in an equally aggressive or condescending manner

Given that this is NEVER raised by your lobby I think it is reasonable to conclude that you collectively have no intention of allowing these concerns to inform or modify your position on immigration.

Apparently, according to your lobby, individual human right of illegal immigrants trumps all other environmental, political held by roughly half of 21 million Australians.

"It did have a White Australia policy that became morally and practically unsustainable."

I agree that this was unacceptibly extreme and ill informed.

But, regardless of whether you consider it racist, we also need to recognize that some cultures (skin colour being irrelevant) are more compatible with western society than others.

And that if we pursue sustained high immigration from those less compatible societies then it leads to social and political instability. I think we have and are seeing ample evidence of that in Britain and Europe, with a backlash against multiculturalism within major poltical parties of Britain in particular

That is not to say that people from those cultures should be permanently locked out, but it does mean that immigration levels from those cultures should be very much smaller than they currently are to allow those people sufficient time to assimilate into the host culture without formation of socially disruptive ethnic enclaves as we see in may parts of Britain.

I will also add that, in my view, these problems will be adequately addressed by default through a policy of zero net population growth that is primarily informed by environmental and ecological concerns.

"My greatest fear about the beat-up on asylum seekers is that it will result in violence, not simply of the kind being visited on refugee communities in subtle"

As long as your lobby continues to virtually push for 'open borders' with respect to illegal arrivals, against the wishes of a large proportion of Australians, then YOU are virtually guarenteeing that, at some point in the future, there will be signficant violence meted out to refugees.

Perhaps you have failed to notice that xenophobia is an inseperable part of human nature for 99.9% of our species, that varying levels and forms of xenophobia are rife throughout all societies, even the ethnically homogenous ones.

One obvious example of this in Australia is xenophobia (usually good natured) between Collingwood supporters and non-Collingwood supporters. Another is between construction employees and construction management. Yet another is between Labor and Luberal supporters. And the most obvious example is between muslims and christians even when the adherents are ethnically identical!

It is very often competition over limited resources (water, wealth, jobs, food) that turns that low level and/or good natured xenophobia into sectarian violence, outright racism and, in extreme cases, ethnic cleansing and civil war.

This basic aspect of human nature should also inform immigration policy. If this is ignored consistently over a long period of time then you are virtually guarenteeing political instability and violence at some point in the future.

"What's at stake here is the high reputation for common decency of Australians and our intuitive dislike for those who would kick a dog when its down. "

I will simply refer you to a quote by Isaac Asimov:

"The same way democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are the less one individual matters."

Australia and Australians are no exception. If your lobby insists on pushing this agenda too far then you risk causing what you are seeking to prevent!

The full context of this quote is below:

Moyers: What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if population growth continues at its present rate?

Asimov: It will be completely destroyed. I will use what I call my bathroom metaphor. Two people live in an apartment and there are two bathrooms, then both have the freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want, and stay as long as you want, for whatever you need. Everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in the freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, "Aren't you through yet?" and so on.

The same way democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are the less one individual matters.

"Xenophobia, which does exist, is the expression of hatred of others on the basis of their ethnic difference (not their racial difference, for we are all members of the same human race"

You are incorrect here Michael.

Xenophobia is essentially fear of 'outsiders' or 'strangers' and an 'outsider' ot 'stranger' need not be ethnically different or from another country.

Also consider the sometimes substantial xenophobia that small rural communities exhibit towards new residents from the city.

Therefore Collingwood and religious xenophobia etc are indeed legitimate examples of xenophobia where the protagonists may be citizens of the same country and ethnically identical but never the less regarded as 'foreign' or 'strange'.

Please refer to the oxford dictionary:

"A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples."

Racism is a special or extreme case of xenophobia that IS based on race or ethnicity.

And I also disagree with you that there is not substantial simmering racism and xenophobia in america.

Consider the many examples of brutality meted out to latino and african americans by some los angeles etc policemen that we have seen in the news in recent years one of which sparked the Los Angeles riot.

It would seem to me that your study was not adequately wide enough if it failed to reveal or account for glaring examples of racism and xenophobia such as this.

I also posit that republican america's hostility towards 'obama care' is partly due to that demographic not wanting give substantial Latino Mexican demographic that particular slice of the economic pie.

Perhaps also because republican america senses that, given America's virtually uncontrollable border with Mexico, tax payer funded public health care, which will be taken up by the substantial latin community, may well end up sending America over the fiscal cliff.

Precisely why we should unratify the UN refugee convention as it currently stands......because it all but takes peoples' word for it that they are being persecuted.

It was developed decades ago after a world war during which it was obvious which people were being persecuted and at a time when economic/over population pressure to emmigrate within the third world was substantially lower than it is at present.

The UN refugee convention is in dire need of being updated and proper systems put in place to check the bona fides of those claiming to be persecuted.

Let us not follow Europe to the verge of economic ruin that has been partly brought about by massive and unsustainable immigration from north Africa and the middle east that European countries have permitted on the back of the UN refugee convention.

Well Michael I disagree with your interpretation of the dictionary definition of xeonophobia.

And I am equally confident that most readers of these posts will agree with me that what YOU are describing is more commonly referd to as racism!

And whether or not people agree with me that the animosity between Collingwood supporters and non-Collingwood supporters is precisely xenophobia, I think most would agree that the mindset springs from exactly the same part of our human nature.

If you read "The Future Eaters" by Tim Flannery you will re-call the extreme tribal xenophobia that he describes among New Guinea's highland tribes, despite the fact that they are all ethnically identical.

As such would you please enlighten me as to why you think this animosity is fundamentally different to that between Collingwood supporters and non-Collingwood supporters. Other than the latter is in the context of a supposed liberal and enlightened western society.

I would also like to point out to you that a certain amount of xenophobia is essential for us to form a cohesive and functional society.

If our social tendancies can be regarded as a coin then xenophobia and social cohesion are opposite sides of that coin. Without both I posit that our societies would probabl more closely resemble that of orangutans.

In my view sectarianism describes the social results while xenophobia describes the psychological driver of the results.

Why do different groups fight each other in a sectarian conflict? Because each loath and or fear the opposing group and that is xenophobia.

"just as Muslim Arabs were once the colonial underlings of the French, are well regarded in North America"
Again I disagree with you Michael - you may have subconsciously arranged your study to find only that evidence which supports you pre-conceived notions.

Especially after 9/11. Let us remember that muslim-arab american soldier who rebelled over being forced to shave his beard by shooting dead several of his fellow soldiers in that american mainland army base. There have been other similar intstances particularly in afghanistan of late.

I think there is considerable barely disguised resentment among americans towards muslims and arabs.

Re the UN refugee convention....

Perhaps you are right and the 'structure' of it is not as bad as I am assuming.

Perhaps the problem here is really that the refugee lobby in Australia and perhaps some individual members of the UN are misusing the UN refugee convention as a means of promoting their open borders political agenda.

Perhaps then the refugee convention needs some additional updating to allow for mandatory detention to address the increasing problem of economic migration from the third world.

And the fact remains that our adherance to the refugee convention is causing Indonesia signficant problems with illegal migrants that they can ill afford.

"Europe is not on the verge of economic ruin. It has a temporary fiscal deficit problem run up as a result of its own economic profligacy and the reckless insider trading of investment bankers and the US credit crunch, when a loss of confidence by US investors in the value of sub-prime mortgages caused a liquidity crisis. "

I disagree with you Michael and I think a number of respected economists would disagree with you also.

Have you ever bothered to look into how our modern financial system works at the fundamental level?

I doubt that you have Michael because what you have posted about the GFC etc is merely parroting what you have heard in the Murdoch media etc.

I looked into it a while back and discovered the doco "Money as debt" on youtube. I could scarcely believe what it was telling me so I looked at a number of other docos on the same subject, but all of them confirmed much the same thing.

Essentially money is injected into our economy through people taking out loans for houses, car and consumer items. The banks simply type the amount of the load into the loan account which is then added to the bank's ledger as new money that then enters our economy.

When you pay back the loan that money is extinguished from the economy. So if everyone in Australia paid off their loans, there would be virtually no money in our economy and we would be in a deep dark depression.

That is why politicians are obsessed with maintaining population growth, i.e. to maintain the steady supply of new borrowers particularly new home buyers that inject a considerable amount of new money into out economy.

This is the reason for all the resenet property speculation that drove the property boom around the globe that has subsequently collpased in many countries.

It is not rocket science to see that our entire economic system has become little more than a pyramid scheme and that it will all fall in a heap sooner or later.

Many respected economists acknowledge that the GFC is possibly the first stages of the inevitable collapse, as the drive to generate more debt money, to pay the interest on previous debt money, butts up against the physical limits of planet Earth.

I would like to also add that the fact that the jewish community are advocates the freeing of those in mandatory detention means preceisely 0 to me.

Many Jews regard Palestinans with the same contempt that the nazis regarded the european Jews with.

This is a little like the catholic church lecturing us about morality around sex in the face of decades of paedophilia within the church and its communities.

What a bl00dy joke!

“All of the definitions available on the internet allude to xenophobia having foreign and indeed racist connotations. However, let's say that you are also right. After all two people can be and not everything is either wrong or right but subject to degrees and contexts of meaning”

Michael I still disagree with your interpretation of xenophobia regardless of what you think you have found in sources from the net.
1) Any of the dictionary definitions I have read do not explicitly or exclusively state that xenophobia is fear of people from other countries.
2) The concept of ‘other countries’ is a rather subjective concept if you consider human history. What about the time period of the Roman Empire when the world consisted of city states, loosely centered around tribes, rather than nation states. Does that mean xenophobia did not exist then???
3) Or indeed if you consider Afghanistan that is more a collection of large tribes than a modern nation state. Does that mean xenophobia (fear and/or loathing of the ‘other’) between tribes does not exist within Afghan societies.
In this respect you might loosley view collingwood supporters and non-collingwood supporters as opposing tribes or city states within the nation state of Australia.
Xenophobia has not just suddenly appeared in human society because nation states and the concept of ‘other country’ has arisen in the modern era. The modern era and nation states have grown up around the xenophobia.

"which suggests that xenophobia is a natural and indeed a good thing in terms of a unity that binds a group of persons"

Yes Michael I am indeed saying that xenophobia is a perfectly natural aspect of human behaviour, as it is with many other species of higher animal, e.g. lions.

That is not to say that xenophobia is desriable or that it is not destructive if it gets out of hand as with the nazis during WW2.

What I am saying is that the wiring in our brains that gives rise to BOTH social cohesion on one hand and xenophobia on the other is a double edges sword.

The social cohesion aspect is highly desriable while the xenophobia aspect needs to be very carefully managed.

And high immigration levels, especially in an era where resources, jobs and wealth etc are increasingly in short supply, is not an intelligent way to manage xenophobia within our western societies.

"In my view fear of outsiders, especially phobic fears can never constitute a healthy basis for establishing an identity or unity that binds and should always be challenged, if not in the courts then on a psychiatrist's couch (or both). "

Well Michael it is time you left you fantasies of paradise behind and returned to human reality.

In my view you can NEVER have social cohesion or group cohesion entirely without any xenophobia what so ever

I would be interested to know if any behavioural scientists, specialising in human behaviour, have conducted any studies along these lines.

"Granted that it's an existential reality, which i do not seek to deny or ignore, you appear to seek to excuse what you yourself argue is a phobic or irrational behaviour. Please note that I do not seek to demean you in pointing this out, for my interest is simply to show that xenophobia, like sexism or classism - all of them existential realities - is/are never morally acceptable."

I am under NO illusion that my university science education renders me entirely immune from xenophobic thoughts.

I hope you are not under this illusion with you academic credentials Michael?

I have no doubt that the right circumstances could escelate the xeonophobia suppressed in both of us into outright hostile racism if we did not remain vigilant about our thought processes.

"pathological behaviour "
I disagree!
The authorities currently regard drug abuse and addiction as 'pathological behaviour' And yet all their zero tolerance law enforcement makes little or no impact on drug dealing and drug abuse in the big picture. That is why there are increasing calls to legalise drugs and treat drug addiction as a health issue.

Your attitude toward xenophobia as similar to the current attitude toward drugs and is doomed to failure. You can't intelligently hope to legislate against or regulate peoples' thoughts. All you do is push the attitudes underground and encourage people to conceal any of their xenophobic decisions.

"In legal and moral terms it is unjust, in the sense of taking away from outsiders the equal rights that they might expect by virtue of xenophobes treating them as unequal and therefore less than human."

Lecturing Australians about moral obligations is pi$$ing against the wind Michael. It certainly is to me.

I think the greens have learned that with the ALP government doing an about face on illegal boat arrivals.

We have moral obligations other than what we do with refugees and other immigrants.

What about our moral obligation to leaving an Australia to our children and gran children at least as good as what we inherited?

What about our moral obligations to the hundreds of millions of refugees who will NEVER make it to Australia? Why focus only on the ones who can afford to pay people smugglers a few tens of thousands of dollars for a seat on one of the boats?

"Europe is noweher near to becoming what you call a 'Third World' region."

The PIGS are dangerously close to becoming all but third world nations as a result of the GFC.

I suspect I will live long enough to see the beginning of the unravelling of our global ponzi economic scheme.

I doubt that America and the rest or Europe are all that far behind PIGS.

"You seek to redefine xenophobia even "

Michael I am afraid I really don't care what you think xeonophobia means and what you think the authors of the oxford dictionary intended it to mean.

Most definition for xenophobia are along these lines "Xenophobia is a dislike or fear of people from other countries or of that which is foreign or strange."

"foreign or strange" does not exclusively mean people from other countries. Do you really wish to continue disputing this point Michael?

And the concept of 'other country' and nation states is a fairly recent political concept anyway, however xenophobia has been a part of human psychology from day dot.

Xenophobia was a reality in human societies in medieval times during which the concept of a nation was restricted to cities or kingdoms. For example, some one from Wessex would have been reguarded as a foreigner by some one in Kent and possibly loathed as some Australians currently loath muslims.

And I am certainly not alone in have this interpretation of 'xenophobia'. In fact my interpretation of the word was modified after reading Tim Flannery's "The Future Eaters" in which he describes the intense tribal xenophobia among the highland tribes of New Guinea. So here is one person with as many letters after his name as you who disagrees with your narrow interpretation of xenophobia!

"I agreed with qualification and added a rider that it was equally reasonable to argue the case that opposites attract and that fear of strangers, for at least half the population, might be regarded as nutty. "

Possibly Michael. But I could also argue that half the population is better educated and therefore just a little better at suppressing their innate xeonophobic tendancies.

"If you think this judgment wrong, consider your extravagant use of the demeaning acronym, PIGS, and your reference to interbred people as 'orangutans'."

The latter is a straw man argument if ever I have heard one. Where the hell did you pull that one from.

Would you care to point out where I even mentioned anything remotely like "interbred people as 'orangutans'.

You have taken my ''orangutans" comment out of context and utterely misrepresented it in an attempt to slur.

As an 'educator' I would have thought you would be above such lowly tactics, but apparently not :-(

"We are, in short, far more hybridised than we think, and the only basis for separating people racially is to rely on distinctions that in the end are simply cultural rather than biological"

I totally accept what sicence says about there being no genetic distinction between different ethnicities along the lines of speciation.

But what science tells us does not necessarily correlate with our innate tendancies, with the wiring in our brains related to social behaviour.

While this knowledge about ourselves enables some of us to suppress our xenophobic tendancies, it will never entirely eliminate xenophobia from human society.

Just as knowledge about the health risks of drinking will not succeed in eliminating alcoholic beverages and drunken violence from our societies.

"Also, the history of xenophobia, as indeed of racism, is far more recent and 'culturally-constructed' than you might think."

That is bloody rubbish and you damn well know it Michael.

I am not going to sit here and indulge your rediculous comment any further!

"I would suggest doing some more research in the area, even consulting Tim Flannery's work less selectively, for evidence that he opposes asylum seekers, instead of him arguing for a resolution of global conflicts engendered by competition "

Another straw man argument!

I made no suggestion that Tim Flannery opposes assylum seekers based on his comments about xenophobia among highland New Guinea tribes.

I have no idea what his personal views are on that matter.

"These persons are both human like us, and therefore subjects, as well as potentially economically beneficial to us in the longer term, "

I agree that they are human beings like me and, if I were in their place, I might behave similarly.

But, dispassionately, there are tens to hundreds of millions of them and all their lives cannot be saved by immigrating to Australia.

As I have pointed out we have other moral obligations apart from to refugees and we do not have the right to disregard those other moral obligations to give us, as a nation, short term gratification and kudos in the international community!

Re the orangutung comment.

Your casting of this comment in a totally inaccurate light was abhorrant as far as I am concerned.

My comment was as follows....

If we were to expunge that part of the 'wiring' in our brains that gives us the tendancy of xenophobic behaviour then I suspect human society would more resemble orangutung society where individuals rarely interact and spend most of their lives alone.

Because we would also have expunged the 'wiring' in our brains that gives us the tendancy to want to socialise extensively with other members of our species and hence the tendancy to form cohesive societies and groups within societies.

"Paranoia about the future and sentimental nostalgia for an imagined past is socially and, arguably, mentally pathological. "

This speaks to your own political agenda regarding refugees and immigration.

It does not speak to your presumed superior expertise on the matter!

You are entirely ignoring the ecological constraints on this continent to population size and hence your 'expertise' on this matter is incomplete at best!

Which is why we have the scientific peer review process and why people should listen to the entire scientific community and not just to individuals like yourself.

"Also, the history of xenophobia, as indeed of racism, is far more recent and 'culturally-constructed' than you might think."

You can give the 'mental process' what ever name you prefer: xenophobia, sectarianism or what ever else.

You can classify it according to superficial and transient human politics if you prefer......call it xenophobia if it is related to people from other countries or sectarianism if it relates to different political groups.

But the fact remains the mental processes and the 'neural topology' behind it are identical.

For my own convenience I will continue, to follow Tim Flannery's example, and refer to all examples of it as xenophobia.

"Also, the history of xenophobia, as indeed of racism, is far more recent and 'culturally-constructed' than you might think."

Xenophobia, sectarianism and racism are different manifestations of the same underlying 'brain wiring'.

Just as autism spectrum disorders are a collection of developmental disorders with much the same etiology.

Cultural constructs are very dynamic and transient but innate human behavioural characteristics are not.

Preceisely how those behavioural characteristics manifest themselves, in the context of the contemporary society and the world views of its members, will vary.

And academics like yourself will continue to be unable or unwilling to take a step back and see the connections between those manifestations in terms of brain physiology rather than their personal world views.

Even scientists and academics are as prone to tunnel vision as politicians and business people.

Why don't you individuals get off your soap boxes and give it a rest!

The fact that Australia has won a seat at the UN does not mean we owe Sri Lankens a visa!

If there is any truth to these reports then we can pressure the Sri Lanken government to clean up its act through the instruments of the UN!

For the record I have a BSc (medical science) from the University of Melbourne but have not worked in science for some years.

So what I have posted here is my view and not necessarily established scientific fact. Although my view has developed from various reputable science documentaries and lectures I have watched. I have taken the facts and from these and extrapolated the likely etiology of all forms of xenophobic behaviour.

As I said I would be most interested if any researchers have looked into this sort of thing.

There are a great many aspects of human behaviour that are most likely the result of 'brain wiring' or instincts and not 'free will'.

In fact I have watched a few lectures online where neurophysiologists regard the notion of 'free will', with respect to human behaviour, as an illusion.

I agree with them in principal but perhaps diagree with them on some of the finer details of their arguments.

But I am heartened that we are now appear perhaps tentatively in agreement about the the neurophysiological etiology of xenophobic specrum behaviour, whether it be ethnic, country, vocational, sporting, tribal or religious in nature.

Tim Flannery rarely seems to comment specifically on population levels, as they apply to the Australian situation, but I have come across comments where he obviously recognizes the need to limit our population although he does appear to be in favour of increasing our humanitarian intake. Personally I would like to know exactly what his position is on this matter given his book "The Future Eaters".

Personally I don't care whether our immigration intake is all skilled or all humanitarian, as long as a policy of zero net population growth is pursued. In my view adherance to this will adequately manage all the other social stability issues that I have mentioned.

And we cannot afford to make exceptions for refugees from any country.

If we make an exception for Sri Lanka because it has a relatively small population, or what ever other reason, then where do we draw the line for the rest of the hundreds of millions of refugees across the rest of the world.

We cannot afford to allow our emotions to rule our heads with this this issue. Because our decisions on this issue now could have far reaching consequences for future generarions of Australians with no signficant net benefit for the planets refugees or Sri Lanken refugees specifically.