Can we say that the judge of what we consider real is now the degree of predictability?

Centuries ago, we could explain lighting as Gods being angry. We would do things to attempt to ease them (e.g. sacrifice a goat) and it would work or not. But the Gods were real to us.

In modern times, we know how lighting is produced, and we can predict it certainly well.

I’d argue both explanations have the same degree of realness narratively speaking (atoms producing lighting vs Gods throwing them from the sky) but what has changed is that one explanation predicts way better than the other.

So, even if the degree of realness is the same, the judge of what story we choose is predictability.