his position is [...] that social skills are not skills that can be learned through formal education.
How would we know? I am not aware of any mass formal education system, state supported or otherwise, that makes more than a very token nod in this direction. The closest analogue I'm aware of is social skills training for people with autism spectrum disorders. I know that works if the participants apply the theory outside the classroom, I've seen it. Hell, it even helps a little if you don't, because your modelling skills get better once you have some idea what's going on.
A lot of what etiquette schools teach is exactly that. So are most "job training" programs in the US ("don't smell bad, don't insult your interviewers, etc." - it's really a big joke; I recommend Lafer's The Job Training Charade if you want to understand what's going to happen to the US work force and economy in the next 20 years).
Your example of skills training for autism is probably the best. There's also the self-help and pick-up/dating coach industries. Every single corporate team-building workshop. Basically all of psychology.
Social skills can certainly be taught through formal education (and programmed into robots, too). They do need to be practiced also, but claiming they're not like other kinds of information is the same baseless anthropocentrism argument the conservatives keep pulling out to deny that people weren't like apes, evolution didn't happen, god exists etc. etc.
How would we know? I am not aware of any mass formal education system, state supported or otherwise, that makes more than a very token nod in this direction. The closest analogue I'm aware of is social skills training for people with autism spectrum disorders. I know that works if the participants apply the theory outside the classroom, I've seen it. Hell, it even helps a little if you don't, because your modelling skills get better once you have some idea what's going on.