Word: skeptics
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most rare: the search for God. When he determined to dedicate himself to the Swami, he made it plausible by remembering that he "hated anything which sounded like 'religion'" and "had always regarded Vedanta philosophy, or yoga, as the ultimate in mystery-mongering nonsense." Here is the perfect skeptic's guide to faith, in which even the most vaporous of concepts is rendered with a brilliant everyday lucidity ("The Ego...is like a man who will stand right in front of you at a horse race...
Segel, who sees no choice but to make the attempt, remains a skeptic...
Catholics face a more formidable skeptic. In 1989 the Vatican issued a document saying the practice of Eastern traditions like yoga "can degenerate into a cult of the body," warning Catholics against mistaking yoga's "pleasing sensations" for "spiritual well-being." It was signed by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger--now Pope Benedict XVI. In a 2003 document the Vatican further distances itself from New Age practices, including yoga. Even so, Father Thomas Ryan, a Catholic leader of the Christian yoga movement, says he interprets the church's position not as a denunciation of yoga but as a reminder to "respect...
...Mandelson relishes. A passionate and ambitious man, he is complex almost to the point of contradiction: a former member of the Young Communist League who served as Britain's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, a committed pro-European appointed by one of the E.U.'s most Euro-skeptic countries. He played a central role in the British Labour Party's makeover from an unpopular assemblage of hapless lefties to the formidable vote-getting machine it has become. But Mandelson is also notoriously Machiavellian and polarizing, well-known for using anonymous briefings to favored journalists to advance himself...
...living within strolling distance of Liang Bua has cast doubt over the separate-species theory, and sparked a bitter split in scientific circles over its validity. Battle lines have been drawn, with each side vigorously trying to discredit the other. Rampasasa "makes the short-stature argument completely irrelevant," says skeptic Alan Thorne, an anthropologist at the Australian National University. "There are plenty of Pygmies in that area. In the case of these bones, it was probably a diseased Pygmy." Counters Peter Brown, the University of New England paleoanthropologist who co-wrote the Nature report with a colleague, archaeologist Michael Morwood...