Actually, we generally CAN discount natural processes as a possibility, enki. As I've already pointed out, the terms are generally used when all the natural processes have been exhausted or non-functioning - be those the body's own mechanisms or medical science's best provisions. To say that there is somehow a further reserve of natural processes beyond these is to suggest that there is another dimension (for want of a better term) of natural-ity that science isn't able to probe. Could this be the very thng that we're dealing with in this debate - the spiritual element to the natural world?
I accept that miracles don't necessarily follow prayer - but then, questions need to be asked about the motivation of that prayer (was it honest, was it really putting the best for person concerned first - or was it simply selfish on the pasrt of the persdon praying, etc. etc.). Similarly, as with ordinary human situations, NO is a perfectly legitimate answer to requests - they don't all have to be answered in the affirmative, if a 'No' is actually better for the asker. (The famous 'want' v 'need' dilemma).

Incidentally, since so few miraculous healings are reported, not least because of our confidentiality rules, how do you know how many (or few) take place? I woulodn't be able to tell you how many such events have occurred in the UK over the past - say 5 years, simply because they aren't reported by the medical or secular press; however, I can say that I have known upwards of a dozen people who have been healed - in direct contravention (to coin a phrase) of highly authoritative medical opinion - as a result of prayer over the last 2 or 3 years alone.

Again, this is something that has to be experienced, either personally (or at least within a family or close community), before it can be appreciated.

In finishing, I'd fully agree that we need "... to look at the natural world. At least we know that that world exists." It just seems to me that some people understand the term 'the natural world' in different ways to others