Statistical anomaly or magic cat sense?

I find it interesting that when presented with an unusual event, like a cat that appears able to predict imminent death at a nursing home, the first assumption is the cat has some sort of magical powers, not that it’s a statistical anomaly.

Maybe the cat is magic.  But I don’t think I’d assume that until I got a chance to crunch some numbers to verify the probability of a cat randomly selecting people about to die in a nursing home.

Jumping to this conclusion tells us a lot about ourselves, and our lack of critical thinking skills.  Develop and use those skills instead of assuming you’ve found a magic cat.