"If I descended from an ape, how come apes are still here?"

If you have been asked this question then you need to make an assessment of the questioner before answering.The question might be being asked sincerely from a purely ignorant stance. If this is the case then you have been given copious amounts of information that should sway a rational mind as it really is not that difficult a concept to grasp.Because of the nature of this question I believe that it is most likely that you are being asked this question by a YEC. In which case you are probably also faced with a presuppositionalist, which means that you are wasting your time. I will leave it to you to look up Presuppositional Apologetics for yourself so you will know how to spot it. Their stance is not only self-contradictory it also contradicts the evidence of Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Cosmology etc.

The best set of assumptions I have heard from someone else are...1. The universe exists.
2. You can learn something about reality.
3. Models with predictive capability are better than models without predictive capability.The problem with the philosophy of science is that people confuse it with actual science.Are you stating that dogs are better than chimps at reading our facial expressions? I'm not aware that they are.