A groundbreaking new autism study has reportedly taken place without any autistic people involved at all – to the relief of its researchers.

The study, entitled “Why are they like that?”, seeks to investigate the causes of autism as conjectured by the highly opinionated loved ones and colleagues of autistic people, whose hot takes are infinitely more valuable than anything autistic people have to say.

Lead researcher Dr. Karen Hoyland said: “Every time we recruit autistic people, they shit on our methodology. They’re either too talkative or not talkative enough to be interviewed, too literal to take our confusingly worded surveys, and all of them seem to love psychology so they just guess all my clever little tricks! That should be impossible! My PhD supervisor was The Riddler!”

“We have gathered in-depth data on what non-autistic people think about autism, information they almost never volunteer unprompted,” Dr. Hoyland continued. “Is it objective? Of course it is. If nobody challenges my worldview, that means it’s objective. I learnt that from a podcast.”

It is hoped the study will launch a new academic revolution to replaced “lived experience” research with what Dr. Hoyland’s team call “the infinitely sexier art of guesswork and speculation”.

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