If you could teach a course that would prepare someone to be a proficient, safe pilot, you could also teach a computer to do it. The reason humans are necessary is because they're capable of parallel processing...loosely speaking "learning from experience". Certainly the quality of preparation one receives has great bearing on how quickly they learn from their experiences, but without the experience, the preparation just qualifies you to teach a class on flying airplanes.
There's a reason insurance companies require numbers in logbooks. Some very smart actuaries who have no emotional dog in the fight have determined that these numbers create superior pilots. I don't see any reason to argue with them.