You can run physical tests in a laboratory to get a purified sample, whether of a protein or compound. You can centrifuge, you can run spectroscopy, and many other methods to reduce down the thing you are looking at.So I guess proteins and other molecules aren't real either? We haven't directly observed them. Guess we just have to throw out the entire field of chemistry
Where this process breaks down is at the Nano scale (the domain of viruses) and smaller, and at the other end (galactic/universal). You can't physically observe at the Nano scale except under electron microscopy which produces static, grainy imagery, and beyond that we can't see at all.
My overriding contention, at either end of the scale, is that we are divorced from reality because we can't observe or interact with these scales except through an abstract mathematical interpolation. And I believe the interpolation is wrong and demonstrably so.
The particle concept structure itself is rooted back in Greek philosophical thinking and while it is useful as a basis for our understanding of the physical world, it might not be accurate at all. Again we resort to mathematical descriptions through quantum physics, based around preconceived notions, but at the end of the day we have no idea what is really going on at the atomic scale and smaller.For instance, we've never directly observed an electron, yet its existence is fundamental to the structure of atoms and molecules. We understand electron configuration and behavior through the effects they have, such as light emission in spectroscopy or electron density maps in crystallography.
Science exists in a particular paradigm that is centred around atomistic philosophy and gravitational/relativistic thinking. It permeates all our thinking. I do not dispute basic mechanical physics, elemental chemistry, and basic biological physiology, but at the end of the day anything beyond those simple parameters is up for debate quite frankly because it all falls outside the scope of what we can accurately deduce without resorting to mathematical speculation.
Why can't you concede this? You speak with such authority as if all these things beyond our scope are true, simply because that is where science is now and doesn't know any better, despite the fact they are all theories. You don't know any more than the scientists know that these things are true. All I'm saying is I believe they are in error and that the weight of those errors continues to grow as they cling to dogma (as you do too obviously).
You defend these things with the zeal of an ardent religious believer, as many others do. Face the truth, you don't know and your ego refuses to allow anyone to challenge that position.