A computer program...that seals it.
The same analysis could be done by hand, it would simply take a lot longer.
Betwixt 1.8 million and 10,000 year ago...that nails it down.
Scientists study events that happened long ago constantly in science.
Nothing can be definitively known about the sound of Attic Greek
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the study in question. There is no way to reproduce the sounds of a language, because the sounds didn't survive. However, the structure of a language can survive, which is why we still have people "speaking" Attic Greek even though the pronunciation is probably quite different.
The scientists used a new, experimental method to see whether they got the same results as using the old, tested method and it worked. After the successful test, they published their findings and asked other linguists to test the new method on the languages they were studying. More experimentation will show how much the theory is worth.
That's science.
Their conclusions, whatever they might be, will be neither provable, testable nor observable. It will be yet another academic exercise in speculation.
Scientists study events that happened long ago constantly in science.
Yes, but at least they have physical evidence which they can try to date using some radiometric dating method (such as they are), or concurrence with "known" events. Such physical dating can also be highly dubious--radiometric dating methods are hardly reliable, assumptions made about dating frameworks, etc. Language prior to writing leaves no trace. If we didn't have extant copies of ancient Greek texts could we know for any certaintly what ancient Greek was like, making our surmises from the modern dialects? We might get close, but how would we know unless we unearthed a text?
[I said] Nothing can be definitively known about the sound of Attic Greek... [You said] Which has absolutely nothing to do with the study in question. There is no way to reproduce the sounds of a language, because the sounds didn't survive. However, the structure of a language can survive, which is why we still have people "speaking" Attic Greek even though the pronunciation is probably quite different.
Of course it is germain. The point is that all aspects of language undergo change, phonology probably being the most dramatic, which is why I used it as an example. Yet, we know more about the supposed sound of Attic Greek than we do of some 10,000 year old language's supposed structure, because we have a written record for the language in question. We have no written record for proto-greek (unless one assigns that role to Linear B), let alone some even earlier indo-european tongue circa 3,000-10,000 B.C. We can "guess" what it may have been like, but we can only "guess." We will never know. We will never observe it. We can never prove it. We can only test it against whatever criteria we have established, which is suspiciously circular.
We don't have people today speaking [Ancient] Attic Greek, as you say, "because the structure survived." The morphology and syntax of Attic and Modern Greek are significantly different, not to mention the phonology. Some structure survived others didn't (the passive transformation of modern Greek is more closely related to modern English than Attic Greek.) What structures of language are being investigated? Sentence structure? (SVO or SOV? Clauses? Conditionals? Prepositional phrases?) Inflection? Surface level case? Deep structure? The Science blurb doesn't detail what aspects of language "structure" is under investigation.
The scientists used a new, experimental method to see whether they got the same results as using the old, tested method and it worked. After the successful test, they published their findings and asked other linguists to test the new method on the languages they were studying.
The problem with all historical linguistics is that there is very little history, mostly speculation. One can posit what the structure of 10,000 year old proto-indo-european may have looked like, but no one will ever know. Ever. It's not testible. It may be repeatable--repeatably wrong--but how will we know?
More experimentation will show how much the theory is worth.
I'm not holding my breath.