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How do we know ANYTHING? It could be that basically everything is an illusion. The idea can't be disproven. Heck! It might be true.

But it isn't useful. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't help you with anything. It isn't testable. At least, there is no test which, by failing to support it, casts any doubt upon it. Any failure to unveil the illusion is just the illusion WORKING, you see.

What we actually do is judge knowledge by whether it works. Occam's Razor comes in here. One way to think of it is that most things are what they look like. Until you have reason to suspect otherwise, what looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck is a duck. It might not be a duck, really, but until you hear the clockwork motor grinding or detect something else that doesn't fit, that's the way to go.

Everything in science is reasoned that way. It contains useful, testable ideas selected over others on a basis of the preponderance of evidence. There's a current picture and old discarded stuff is not given equal time, however unfair that may seem.

"It could be that basically everything is an illusion. The idea can't be disproven. Heck! It might be true. But it isn't useful."

That's a start. How about this. "I think, therefore I am." I KNOW that I exist. I also know that I have experiences and memories. EVEN IF these are an illusion, they exist in some form or another.

Now I have just stated a proof that NOT EVERYTHING is an illusion. I can build knowledge on this using logic.

For example, I can reason that either I came from something else OR I am self-existing. I find the proposition of being self-existing to be highly improbable. Here is where FAITH begins.

We can KNOW other things by observation, induction and deduction within the parameters of the axioms we set. We must make ASSUMPTIONS about what is real. I can KNOW many things, but this knowledge requires that I make some assumptions.

So we arrive at a logical conclusion. Not only does science not contradict FAITH, but FAITH is essential to both logic and science. We BELIEVE what is reasonable to believe.

You are right about parsimony. It makes sense to explore the simplest possibilities before more complex ones, particularly when the simpler ones work.

Evolutionary theory is not simple. Compare physics. Physics is very simple (not always easy, but simple).

In physics we use mathematical models of what we perceive to be reality. Within the reality we define, the conclusions are factual, real, and true. As long as the axioms are true, everything else will be. We can test the conclusions empirically and verify them with a high degree of accuracy. We can also use this knowledge in practical ways - like building trains, for example.

Evolution is not like this. We must make many, many assumptions which are highly subjective. You cannot test it in a controlled environment.

The fact that living things adapt and change over time and through generations could correctly lead us to the conclusion that animals we see today may have ancestors that are very different in appearance and other ways. But it is a big jump logically to conclude that all living things share a common ancestry.

The assumption that similarities in animals / people indicates common ancestry is no more credible or scientific than the assumption that they had the same Designer.

Believing one or the other is merely a matter of preference scientifically. And either one requires what ALL KNOWLEDGE requires - FAITH.