This comes back to your (or my) definition of science. To me it's just about furthering knowledge through provable explanations.

Is it more efficient if you collaborate with other people with the same goal (e.g. Academia)? Yes.

Is it a necessity to conduct science? Absolutely not; how do you think it was done in the past? Almost all of the early scientists were self-taught individuals.

What makes it a field that can't be self-taught? What defines the same for any field?

To take the best reading I can of what your point is: you're saying a pupil will not self-study this course and go into CS academia. I agree with you there.

To me, that seems a poor reason to criticize this course, the content, or people who want to pursue it. There are many reasons to learn undergraduate CS material besides pursuing academia (again, self as an easy example: CS -> SWE). I don't feel there was anything in my degree which could not have been self-studied with enough tenacity.

If it's about joining academia, I get your point. Otherwise, really unsure why you're fixated on the title. Anyone can absolutely self study physics the same as computer science, and use that knowledge to advance their understanding in other fields, or hobbies, or just pursue knowledge for the satisfaction. Those all seem worthwhile to me :)

I think self-teaching is much more about the student than the subject. As for CS (but really, programming) the investment for equipment and learning materials is comparatively next to nothing.

Lack of specialist equipment required. You can absolutely become a self-taught physicist, although IMO physics much more difficult than CS.

> Then what is the difference between studies in CS and physics?

The former needs paper and pencil. The latter requires expensive equipment to prove your theories. At best you can learn theoretical physics by yourself and formulate some hypotheses. Proving them might often be a completely different matter.

I think you need to google; "self taught scientists", unfortunately, in my limited perspective, somehow credibility become equalized with degree (e.i. title and money) and not the actual knowledge/skills in many fields, in today's world it is socially unacceptable not to have degree, the value of actual skills/knowledge is not as important as to have PhD title, I really hope it will change in future.

I don't think anything would stop someone from publishing a great paper in physics or computer science on their own in 2021.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's book The Formula is kind of about this. While nothing would stop an individual from publishing such a paper, outside a major company or university setting an individual wouldn't have the network to notice the paper basically.