[JimSEA]

The evolution of the eye is frequently brought up to disprove evolutionary theory. A starting point in response is that the evolution of the eve is well understood:

The evolution of the eye has been a subject of significant study, as a distinctive example of a homologous organ present in a wide variety of species.

The development of the eye is considered by most experts to be monophyletic; that is, all modern eyes, varied as they are, have their origins in a proto-eye believed to have evolved some 540 million years ago.

The majority of the process is believed to have taken only a few million years, as the first predator to gain true imaging would have touched off an “arms race”.[citation needed] Prey animals and competing predators alike would be forced to rapidly match or exceed any such capabilities to survive.

Hence multiple eye types and subtypes developed in parallel.

Eyes in various animals show adaption to their requirements.

For example, birds of prey have much greater visual acuity than humans and some, like diurnal birds of prey, can see ultraviolet light.

The different forms of eye in, for example, vertebrates and mollusks are often cited as examples of parallel evolution.

As far as the vertebrate/mollusk eye is concerned, intermediate, functioning stages have existed in nature, which is also an illustration of the many varieties and peculiarities of eye construction.

In the monophyletic model, these variations are less illustrative of non-vertebrate types such as the arthropod (compound) eye, but as those eyes are simpler to begin with, there are fewer intermediate stages to find.

[Chainmail]

All quite interesting, but what's missing is the direction. The evolution of eyes might very well be understood but the process is not. Innovations in anything require coherent steps and then the integration of those steps. Simply developing a lens alone would have no effect: the organism would have to develop in parallel the modifications of the receptors, the nerve pathways to the brain, etc. The design is a system and all parts of the system have to work together at the same time. The idea that successful engineering changes could happen by merely "fortuitous random mutations" is ludicrous. How could any organism, whether predator or prey come up with an "arms race" to improve their own design of the eyes?

The missing steps are too large, too dramatic: to go from primitive light receptors to a true eye with a lens system is not just a case of chance through repetitive accidents. It is a steady, progressive development cycle in a specific direction.

The process of evolution points to a design feature of the original genetic structure. That structure could not have been accidently generated no matter how much you might believe in chance. Aren't scientists of evolution good at math?