The question is how such a person is able to do research. If you weren't independently wealthy, how would you go about getting funding for a study of human subjects and have it covered by the oversight that it should entail, if you didn't already receive training to a satisfactory degree in an institution of higher learning? Not saying it's impossible, but it would be remarkable on its own.

Of course, once you have already become a popular writer, people start to assume that you are the real deal, without looking into it in detail. So you can fake it 'till you make it. But you'd have to fake it.