The "experts" displayed these errors in e.g. the book Stuff, BIT and more or less the same in all other books -
( in no particular order )
* own bias - disgust, contempt, lack of understanding, continued insistence on there being a universal notion of "value", this value lacking in objects in question, belief in irrationality of the person without verifying or questioning the basis of such irrationality claim, etc.
* confirmation bias in their original research
* statistical validity in question - failed to control for variables, or at least account for, acknowledge and present them in the discussion - any good study starts by discussing statistical models, variables, control and limitations
* failed to question or validate original premises and models, as well as their conclusions
* failed to more deeply assess the nature of processes observed
* failed to present each situation in a complete, balanced light - only "Monster Zooms" ( broad strokes of the horrifying situation ) and "Magician Tricks" ( zooming in on one or more of the cherry-picked "shocking", apparently irrational aspectss )
* asked the wrong questions (assuming pathology, irrationality, the core triad of talking points ( difficulty discarding, emotional attachment, difficulty making decisions) ), of the wrong person (only the keeper, as opposed of the overall situation, including partner, job, finances, time, flows inbound/processing/consumption/discarding, reasons for and sources of acquiring and keeping, pathways to utilization, timeline, sequencing of events, etc.), about the wrong things (just the possessions, not the overall system dynamics).
The entire discourse and most or all common talking points, that is pretty much everything from the mainstream experts, appears to be a monumental scientific and clinical blunder in light of all this.
One would also be well advised to treat any point from those experts, even one that hasn't yet been questioned, as suspect, simply by extrapolation of what we've seen so far.
Quote from BIT -
> "This book is based on the best available science.."
Oh, how that made me chuckle..
In my opinion, based on all I've seen - it's not good enough and it's not even science - because science questions and verifies claims, and these guys, they just make claims, and use loaded, manipulative language to pass them for a given, while building up on top of that..
Example - they observed nagging and yelling ( an enormous red flag ) throughout - but did not stop to question its effects, or compile and present some meaningful data on that, or so much as condemn it as verbal abuse of a person in a vulnerable position..
And it's understandable that these are popular works for non-specialist readers - but from everything that is seen, there is no evidence of even glimpses of scientific rigour - only biases, ideology of discarding and loaded language.