I like the example you gave about survivors of the holocaust, and how your friend's hypothesis is hopelessly unfalsfiable. But that's different from what Paddy is doing. Basically, he's saying that everybody he knows who's a premie is happy with that, at least as far as he is able to determine.

Statistically only the mechanism of selection is different. In the case of the holocaust those who were selected just happened to be the ones who escaped the Nazi net (through a variety of fascinating means, including "passing" and hiding out, emigration, etc.). In Paddy's case, they're the people he knows... and that's obviously not exactly a random selection mechanism. Odds are he knows them because they operate in the same social circles, attend the same functions, live in the same neighborhoods, etc.

And then there's the mechanism that Joe points out. These are just the people least likely to have been tossed hither and yon by the vissitudes of life (because they have stable lives to begin with) or their own skepticism (because they're the most deeply indoctrinated). In the latter case the selection mechanism has something to do with their own psychological makeup.

And how could he? But I do think if he took a survey of exes, he'd find that they are much happier, now, than they were as premies. I also think he'd find that there are a lot more exes than there are premies.

Well that's hard to say. Premies during the era when I was in the cult were pretty happy, but I gather that they gradually became less so as the newness wore off and they aged and matured. If you study cults for very long it becomes obvious that "happiness" doesn't have that much to do with what they feel is important. And there are a lot of people who are deeply unhappy who are neither premies nor exes. I'm not actually convinced that there'd be much difference.

I do know that people feel an enormous sense of relief after they've left the cult, however. And they can certainly better focus on life goals, education, etc. without all that mumbo jumbo distraction. So in a way it's like asking whether you were happier as a child or an adult. What choice did you have? Unless you're Michael Jackson you've got to grow up some day.