These ways of constructing or analyzing scales does not make one or another scale more or less "natural", since the mere act of construction in a certain way is artifical. Also, when speaking of partials and their meaning, you should have in mind that the farther the partial in the series, the less significant it is psychoacoustically. Also, scales are not only about harmonic, but also about melodic relationships. So another explanation would be "in favor" of the Ionian mode, since the Ionian tritone resolves to the tonic, while the fourth and seventh degrees at the same time have tendencies to the third and first (eight), respectively. And so on and so forth...