Honest Question about ASD and Vaccines

I'm going to preface with two things. 1- I'm not interested in personal attacks and fights, so keep it to science-based answers. 2- I'm not anti-vax. My kids are all up on their vaccines.

That said, I'm seeing a lot of articles online saying that there is no evidence linking ASD and vaccines as reasoning for saying there isn't a link and these articles are usually quite antagonistic to any notion that suggests otherwise. Lack of known connection does not mean there is not, it just makes it less likely assuming a great deal of research has been done. What I'm interested in is whether anyone has produced evidence to clearly show what causes ASD and actively show that vaccines cannot cause it.

The CDC has published data showing ASD rates bumping from 1 in 150 (observed in 2000) to 1 in 44 (observed in 2018) https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html so something is causing diagnosed ASD rates to climb substantially. That is a significant climb. I don't know the answer to my question and as I stated, I'm certainly not antivax, but I also want evidence to justify the position rather than veiled ad hominem attacks against anyone who would suggest otherwise.