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You contradict yourself somewhat.

If these evolutionary scientists (”botanists”) can’t tell us what events caused what effect, and exactly where the evolutionary branches diverge (witness the debate between Homo erectus, Homo rudolfensis, Homo gautengensis, Homo ergaster and Homo habilis, for instance), then I feel “so-called” is an accurate description.

I’ve seen academics in what we refer to as evolutionary science simply make narratives up for theses. Hell, if Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, and Java Man can fool generations of suckers out there, then how reliable can they be?

You posted:
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For example, on the branch of Great Apes we find Chimpanzees, Gorillas & Orangutans, of which Chimpanzees share some 98% of our own DNA.
So we are clearly on the same evolutionary “branch”.
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There’s some other things. Some say 98%, others say 96%, and some point out that we share a majority of DNA with bananas.

So we are from the same branch as bananas, too (if you pardon the pun). Who knew?

angryoldfatman: "If these evolutionary scientists ('botanists') can't tell us what events caused what effect, and exactly where the evolutionary branches diverge (witness the debate between Homo erectus, Homo rudolfensis, Homo gautengensis, Homo ergaster and Homo habilis, for instance), then I feel 'so-called' is an accurate description."

But there's nothing "so called" about it.
And it takes no great genius to ask questions for which there are not answers.
Indeed, that is more-or-less the definition of the word "sophomoric".

So, raw material scientists have to work with consists of such things as fossils, geology, comparative biology & DNA broadly speaking.
Confirmed theory puts these together in the rough shape of an evolutionary tree.

However, nobody can answer specifically, for example: what caused Neanderthals to die out?
Sure, any number of factors may have contributed, but all we can say for certain is that after a certain time period, we find no more Neanderthal bones.

But at least with Neanderthals, thanks to DNA analysis, we know for certain they were not our direct ancestors, though they did interbreed to some extent.
That's quite a bit more than we can say about most other pre-human fossils so far discovered.

angryoldfatman: "I've seen academics in what we refer to as evolutionary science simply make narratives up for theses.
Hell, if Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, and Java Man can fool generations of suckers out there, then how reliable can they be?"

You've just recited some famous controversies or frauds from 100+ years ago, as if they happened yesterday.
In fact, in every case, science worked just as it is supposed to: errors were reviewed, exposed & corrected eventually, by other scientists.
But they certainly do tell us that nothing in much of science is ever really "settled".
New data, or new ideas, can always overthrow older understandings.
It's what science is, it's how science works.

angryoldfatman: "There's some other things.
Some say 98%, others say 96%, and some point out that we share a majority of DNA with bananas.
So we are from the same branch as bananas, too (if you pardon the pun).
Who knew?"

All of that is true.
The percentages of similarities in human & chimpanzee DNA depend on exactly what you measure & how you compare.
So any number in the high 90s percent could be supported by selected data.
All it really means is that humans are much more recently related to chimps than to, for example, bananas.
The data suggests that ancestors of humans & chimps branched off about 8 million years ago, while those of humans & bananas roughly a billion years ago.