" One thing all real scientists agree upon is the fact of evolution itself. It is a fact that we are cousins of gorillas, kangaroos, starfish, and bacteria. Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity’s sake, let’s stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact"
BACK TO BASICS
Can any of you "real scientists" defend this statement?
Yes. There is incredibly so much evidence to support this that it is generally accepted as fact. As someone has mentioned, our entire classification system looks as it does because of this fact. The theory of evolution exists to explain this fact, just as the various theories of gravity exist to explain the fact of gravity. ID, if it could be formed into a scientific theory, would also exist to explain this fact.
What's to defend? The sun is hot, and powered by fusion. The nearest galaxies are immensely far away, so that light from them takes hundreds of thousands of years to reach us. Evolution has happened on this planet. I find the evidence for all of these statements to be so compelling that they are facts, as surely as any other fact that I am aware of (barring solipsism). The theory behind them may be debatable, and indeed scientists can be found to debate on the details of all of them, but that doesn't make the facts any more dubious.
I'm not a real scientist but I read them. Evolution (common descent) is a fact acknowledged by people who have examined the evidence, including most ID advocates.
Not everything is known about the genealogy of every living thing, and there are many details to learn about how variation works.