[mnehring]

Complex eyes burst onto the fossil record, fully formed and fully functional.

It is very rare that you have mineralization of soft tissue (only a few cases have been found). The cases where eyes are in the fossil record are as they became more pronounced and were able to either mineralization or were pronounced enough to leave an imprint. Not finding early forms is like saying dandruff didn't exist because we don't find fossil evidence of it. The fact that we have genetically mapped the changes and have organisms that display these transitions is far more proof than for most other items.

[TheThirdRuffian]

[GodGunsGuts]

Then how do you suppose they know so much about the eyes of trilobites? Why do scientists say, as far as the fossil record is concerned, complex eyes appear to have developed all of a sudden, with no evolutionary antecedents?