My argument has nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the article, just with the reasoning you provided.

>It seems absurd to try and vastly reduce sleep when it's not fully understood.

This is an example of faulty reasoning. People started constructing electric generators before completely understanding electromagnetism. Most scientists would actually gladly tell you that we still don't fully understand how almost anything works... that's kind of why they have job security.

If we waited to completely understand phenomena before constructing technology that uses it... we'd often not have the tech necessary to study said phenomena. We still don't have a good understanding of tribo-electricity, and yet that phenomenon is largely responsible for our knowledge that electric charges exist, and allowed for many of the first experimental static generators that kicked off our understanding of one of the fundamental forces of nature.

Contrary to the opinion put forth in your comment, technology and science are not cleanly separated from each other. In fact, technological advancement and innovation often precedes scientific explanation.