When theories are untestable......
Though admittedly these sorts of discussions cause a intractable case of MEGO in my frontal lobes (i.e., "My Eyes Glaze Over"), I know enough to gauge the study as almost entirely tests proving (or seeming to prove) something, and that's where the speculation arises. The proof precedes any theory, or the reverse of the linear explanations of the scientific process as was once outlined daily in high schools in this nation, when Truth was understood to be a fundamental property of not only the created cosmos but the human world.