I have heard it said many times, 'the eye of the trilobite is so amazingly complex ,more so then our own eyes, and that this contradicts evolutionists idea that trilobites were primitive and simple animals'. I don’t think there are any evolutionist who call the trilobite simple, it was a remarkable little critter, and very successful. According to evolutionists, trilobites dominated the seas for hundreds of thousands of years. It wasn’t until the great Triassic extenction that the last trilobites bit the dust.

But questioning the opposition is not proving your point. Yes, the trilobite’s eye was remarkable, but if you do a little research you will find that the eye of the trilobite is not that amazing or unique in the animal kingdom. In fact there is an animal today who’s eyes are almost identical to those of the phacops (the type of trilobite creationist are generally reffering to for this arguement), the horseshoe crab. These lovely critters are also very successful, thanks in part at least to their eye. Unlike the trilobites’ eyes, horseshoe crab eyes are easily studied. Test show that the crab is able to see color and can since even slight movements. These feachers are important for the crabs survival, as they certainly were for the trilobite. Evolution provides animals with what they need to survive, nothing more. This brings me to the shortcummings of the trilobite’s eye. If the horseshoe crab is any indication, (and it’s the best we have presently) then the trilobite could not see detail nor could it see more the ten feet ahead of it at the most. Not a super-eye by any standards, but that’s all it needed to be as wonderfully succesfful as it was.

But lets forget the facts for a moment shall we. For the sake of arguement let’s say the creationist are right, the trilobite’s eyes were the best ever. Would this disprove evolution? Of course not, evolution does not occure at a steady pace, always inching along at the same speed, this has been known to evolutionists since Darwin's time. Evolution happens in spurts, when it is necessary for survival. If the trilobites needed sophistcated eyes to survive, given enouph time they would develop such organs. The evolutionary time scale gives the trilobites a good 200,000,000 years, more then enough time to evolve complex seeing apparatus. The next question a creationist might ask is ‘Since evolutionist say that the fittest survive, why are there no trilobites with us today?’ Quite simply they were not beaten out by anything better, they died in a mass extinction, that only the lucky survived (natural selection).