[Teaching science] also involves the students accepting as fact the observations of others.
Um, as fact, the replicable and demonstrable observations of others, not their opinions or beliefs without such replicability or demonstrability. You only have to accept the facts as facts, not the opinions. For instance, I don't have to *believe* in Australia, I can know it's there even though I have never seen it.

And it involves teaching KNOWLEDGE, not so much a skill. How DO cells work? How do methylation and acetylation affect the duplicability of a strand of DNA? What elements can be used to test the age of things that are too old for Carbon-14 dating? and so on.

Not to mention the evolution of humanity, sez I, mentioning it...