The desire for quantification and testing is, in my opinion, due to the fact that people are reluctant to accept something like uncertainty.

Instead, they want to gain certainty. There is no certainty about this, about consciousness, only something else. But if people do not want to let go of gaining certainty, they will take all possible steps to turn something uncertain into something certain. It may seem that I am in favour of such scientific experiments to prove that "paranormal abilities" exist, for example. I wouldn't put it that way at all, rather I would say that humans can train abilities that are already inherent in them, therefore not para- but "normal". One just doesn't have a particular focus on them.

Whoever gets the impression from the so-called materialists that everything in the universe merely moves by means of blunt physical laws, that there is nothing of consciousness or intelligence to be found in it, probably experiences a narcissistic affront to his world view and wants to stand up against it.
He feels deprived of wonder, the effect of "deep awe!".

Now he wants to counter it by means of the scientific methods that the materialists leave open to him as the only path of discovery they accept. One could call it a clever move that the scientific method exerts a certain compulsion on all those who resist the destruction of their world view to use it (the scientific method) as a counter-evidence. Probably in the knowledge that such a rebuttal can never be achieved.

I wouldn't call it that and I don't see myself as being on one side or the other. Rather, I have this ambiguity in mind, the realisation that this strongly opposing world view reflects a current that appears in many places. A kind of perpetual ping-pong between the forces that fight each other but are mutually dependent. I see the dilemma, I am caught up in it myself in parts, but I can also take a position outside of it or find other interpretations interesting and accept them to some extent.

In the end, I'm not really dogged by seeing scientific experiments popping up all over the place that target abilities related to consciousness, they might as well be ghosts I called and had to regret afterwards.

I talk to "my microbes" occasionally as well as to my plants and I am sure, the cat knows more. I trust, I will be understood. HaHa! ;-)