In phenomenology related to Psychology, I believe I have seen sets of related-similar circumstances, occurring in nature which contrasted (differed) seemingly only a single way. At least some of these appeared to be replicateable. Isn't this as good as a lab experiment (with the experimental and control groups)? Before you say "no", be sure to weigh the possible biases or skews (for other VERY notable reasons) in your operational definitions, THEN judge the case of problems with finding-and-seeing with/in "[replicateable] sets of related-similar circumstances, occurring in nature which contrast in seemingly only a single way". THIS is what I am calling here a natural experiment (and what others in the rather distant past, decades ago, I believed also termed such happenings).

Should such natural experiments be more prominent in our science of Psychology? (Einstein did not create the eclipse to test his theory, did he?)

I wish I could provide an example, but I just took note of some such and never wrote down the details; I cannot imagine beforehand all the questions I might ask HERE on RG. Perhaps someone else can provide an example -- but I will not hold my breath. YET: I KNOW one could find several notable examples in classical ethology -- the work Tinbergen, Lorenz, and Karl von Frisch won the Nobel Prize for in 1973 [(the Nobel Committee had to -- and in the future would have to -- put behavioral science accomplishments in the category of "Medicine and Physiology")]. But continuing: ... After all, this classical ethology group did essentially (and I mean essentially) define behavior patterns in terms of OTHER surrounding or preceding behavior patterns (and related co-varying environmental aspects) -- which were there or not (thus like experimental and control groups), contrasting the 2 otherwise similar, at-least-near-identical situations/circumstances (i.e. their clearly observable environmental aspects and related behavior patterns and the variation). [ The behavioral patterns context can OFTEN be as clear, or clearer, than the 2 sets of differing environmental aspects; IMAGINE THAT !! (Also, some behavior pattern changes are due to internal changes, e.g. hormones in the "animal" -- which also can be measured.)]

[ RG now only allows an apparently fixed set of descriptors for any Question; there are MANY THINGS MISSING, e.g. species-typical action patterns AND innate action patterns. They used to allow people to type in some of their own terms, and took that under advisement. ]