Recently I started watching My Little Pony: Friendship as Magic on the recommendation of numerous friends. It has been entertaining for the most part, but in episode 15, I hit a problem.
The main character, Twilight Sparkle, is an avid intellectual, who is constantly reading and learning about the magic of the world. In episode 15, a friend of hers, Pinkie Pie, reveals a strange talent for divination: When something is about to fall, her tail twitches. Various other manifestations also exist, in excruciating detail.
Twilight Sparkle is very unhappy with this "unscientific" state of affairs. She attempts (to my delight) to do Science to Pinkie Pie, however her attempts to do Science are frustratingly foiled; in large part because her experiments ignore the nature of the phenomenon.
After watching and being frustrated by this episode, I decided that it would be more fun to come up with better experiments that would cut to the core of the issue and really investigate the subject.
My first idea was, if Pinkie Pie's tail twitches when something falls, place Pinkie Pie in a room. In a room next to her, drop things, and have someone else record her responses and timing.
Once you can reliably predict and cause tail twitches, try holding her tail still. See if, say, the rest of her body starts shaking, or the thing stops falling. See if the twitches return if she is asleep. See how far away you can make something fall and still get a reaction.
The list could continue forever! What ideas do you have? You're welcome to seek out and watch the episode, and give experiments that would apply well to Pinkie Pie in particular, or just consider the idea that someone claims that their arm twitches noticeably when something is about to fall, and has used their twitchy arm to accurately predict several falling objects for you, in an uncontrolled setting. How would you Do Science to them (assuming their full cooperation)?
EDIT: it occurred to me immediately after submitting that "Experimental design" would have been a better title beginning that "Rationality exercise," but assuming the RSS issues are unresolved I will not change it.
One way to look at is that currently we only have data on the correlation between her tail twitches and falling objects, but not on the causation involved.
Given this we have two scenarios "Something about her tail twitches causes things to fall" or "Items falling can cause her tail to twitch in the past."
The first option is actually more consistent with the known physics of the world, as it doesn't require anything thought to be impossible like precognition or backwards causation. And it would fit pretty closely to the known phenomena of ponies using magic, often involving them moving their bodies, to move distant objects. So it is plausible she is performing subconscious magic.
Ponies in the show can generally be divided into unicorn-pegasus princesses, unicorns, pegasi, and "earth ponies" who have neither horns nor wings. Pinkie Pie is an earth pony. If Pinkie Sense is magic, it would be the only known instance of an earth pony performing magic.