[christophilus]

The scientific method can be understood by a middle schooler. A rigorous and independent way of thinking can be taught to middle schoolers, too. Understanding the primary causes of bias, both psychological and methodological is also something a middle schooler could be taught, (though I was never really taught it even in university).

Deep understanding of a particular field is something altogether different, and is not what I mean when I talk about capital-S “Science”. For that, you need either grad school or a lot of study.