Welfare reforms has been a success. Today, there are fewer people on the welfare rolls, and more people holding jobs, than there were before the welfare reform policiess adopted under President Clinton. Former welfare receipients are better off today because they are able to support themselves. The success of maximum time limits for collecting welfare benefits demonstrates that one need not be jobless for life. 

This argument states that the welfare reforms have been a success because of the decrease in the number of people enrolled for welfare and increase in the number of employed people. The welfare reforms included putting a maximum time limit on collecting welfare benefits. But, the effect stated by the author as a measure of success of welfare reforms is a direct consequence of removing people from welfare benefits.

The argument is flawed in the sense that it assumes that if lesser number of people are enrolled for welfare benefits, then the welfare reforms have been successful. Infact, the success of welfare reforms can be gauged only by looking at other statistics which portray the average prosperity of people. If after the introduction of the reforms, the prosperity and average incomes for people earlier enrolled for welfare benefits has increased, then these reforms can be considered as success. If the people who had exceeded maximum time limits were not able to secure decent jobs due to disability, bad health or any other reason, then welfare reforms will be deemed as a failure.


The argument goes on to claim that the welfare recepients are better off today because they were able to support themselves. This assertion needs more data, because if the average incomes have decreased, then people are simply getting exploited. Besides author fails to look into scenarios where older people with no pension and other means to support themselves might be getting forced to go back to work.


Lastly, the argument concludes that a person does not need to be jobless for life. This generalization is attributed to the success of the welfare reforms. In this case, the author fails to realize that people with critical illnesses, physical disabilities or mental incapabilities may not be able to secure a decent job. For them to be successfully initiated, many government initiatives will need to be taken. Just throwing people off welfare rolls, will not transform a person from jobless to a capable earning member of the society. Thus although these reforms have succeded in reducing the government expenditure, have they really helped in improving the public prosperity? The answer to this question still requires more data and analyses.

The simple absence of data has never been enough to stop fools from inventing theories. 

It is said that coming to conlusions without first analysing the facts is dangerous. But fools over the history of human civilization, have made this error of inventing theories without having enough data to prove them. We have always made theories by extra-polating our data or going ahead with theories without any reasonable data backing them. For instance, without going out of earth and exploring the night skies, people theorize earth to be as the center of the universe. Some even provided the theory of earth being flat without ever looking at the earth from outside or conducting experiments to prove otherwise.

Thankfully, in today's science, almost every theory is based on the analysis of extensive sets of data. According to the scientific process, a person has to first come up with a hypothesis. Afterwards, in order to prove the hypothesis, he conducts certain experiments and carefully record the observations into data sets. These data sets are then analyzed to either disprove or prove the hypothesis. If it is proven successfully, then only it becomes a theory. Almost, all of the formal areas of study these days, follow the same scientific principle as described above. Infact, in today's world there is an over-abundance of data. For instance, if somebody wants to study the weather, today's weather sensors will provide thousands of data-set points every second about various conditions of weather. Previously, however, without computers and sophisticated sensors, data was recorded only twice or thrice a day. Thus, with the introduction of computers, scientists have got a means of analysing huge amounts of data-sets to increase the accuracy of their findings. Also with internet, and various visualization tools, data is increasingly being used by every scientist to give a theory.

But not everybody follows the scientific process towards making theories. Theories are still being made without data and circulated from one person to another. These theories which are often superstitions or beliefs of one fool spread to form urban myths and legends. There is a even popular Discovery channel show: MythBusters which tries to bust as many of these urban myths as possible. Some of these myths can be very believable while other can be really outlandish. To give an example of an outlandish theory, some people believe that if they are going on a street and a black cat crosses the path in front of them, if they go ahead on the same path, something bad will happen with them.

However, most of these theories also have a good justification behind them. But without data, they can quite often be wrong. For instance, many people believe that by eating sugar, children become over-active and go out-of-control. The reasoning behind the theory is that sugar contains carbohydrates which provide energy and this over-abundance of energy causes children to become hyper-active. Since, there was no supporting data, the theory was never tested. But we now know, that this is a myth since although sugar has energy but extracting energy from it requires digestion and often with extra sugar a child may feel drowsy.

Although people will keep on making new theories, some scientific, some foolish, it is upto us to choose what to believe in. If you are a rational person who believes in science and the importance of data, then you will refrain from believing in the theories purported by fools. But, the simple absence of data will never be enough to stop fools from inventing theories.

'It takes a village to raise a child'. The education of our children is the task of the community as a whole, not merely the province of teachers and local school adminstrators.

Although, in today's world, with busy lives and over-burdened schedules, parents often leave the education of a child in the hands of a school, it is often the responsibility of the whole community to educate a child. If we believe that by sending children to a red bricked building from 8 to 2 is going to educate them, then we might be misleading ourselves. Education involves the overall development of a child. By mugging up of certain historical dates or scientific facts, we cannot classify a person as educated. Education comprises of understanding about human values; discovering various facts about the nature and environment we live in; being able to exercise our body well and excel in sports; become a part of the society and acquire skills to contribute towards the development of the society; and understanding and acquiring the existing culture and taking it forward. 

We are often influenced a lot by our brothers, sisters, peer groups, mentors, parents, and sometimes strangers. The beliefs and values of these people get reflected in us too. So for instance, if a community has a habit of people throwing garbage on the streets; a child growing up in that community will not grow up to respect the value of cleanliness and will do the same. On the contrary, in a society which values hardwork and meritocracy; future generations will also learn to do the same.Education is happening at every moment of our lives. When a small child sees people talking to him, he is learning to talk by listening to them. Similarly, when a child watches a gruesome movie on TV, he learns about violence and imitates the hero by uttering the same bad words from the movie. And it is not just the children, but even adults are influenced and educated by the society. So it becomes the responsibility of the community, to make sure that instead of exposing the tender mind of a child to gruesome violence, it is exposed to the good values in the society. 

Apart from values, people in the community teach children a lot of different skills. For instance, a child growing up in a community of sailors will be good at swimming. But community does not just teach specialised skills like swimming but also very general skills too. Many of us might have learnt cooking from our mothers and driving from our fathers. An elderly grandparent tells about various experiences of life and help in the maturity and formation of judgement about right and wrong in a child's mind. A sibling or a friend from the community encourages one to be competitive and give one's best at anything. Thus, each and every person in our life, teaches us something. 

Thus, instead of delegating the responsibility of education of young ones to schools, we ourselves as a community should take steps towards a good education. The community as a whole, needs to be tolerant and encouraging towards children. We should portray our best face to them while discouraging the ills in our society from them. Since if the children understand the evils and their bad implications, then only will they be truly educated.