I think there's room for research that feels absurd in that the premise & conclusion are almost too reasonable, like "Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping" or "Thea Blackler, Rafael Gomez, Vesna Popovic and M. Helen Thompson, for documenting that most people who use complicated products do not read the instruction manual".

I think "Statistically demonstrated that being stupid makes you a bad monarch" is a good fit in that vein :P Though I suppose it's a legitimately interesting question to what extent the monarch actually matters to their state's outcomes.