I have no idea what context he was speaking in. He said "one of the first living things." Maybe he was talking about the first multicellular organisms. At any rate, you seem to want to ignore the fact that the eyes were very complex early-on:
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We can be justifiably amazed that these trilobites, very early in the history of life on Earth, hit upon the best possible lens design that optical physics has ever been able to formulate.
~Ellis, 2001, p.49
What utter bull. Late on in trilobite evolution, they evolved a Huygens doublet. Big deal. I mean, think for yourself, just once, MM. Is it even plausible this was a better lens than, say, the objective in a good 4 inch refractor? Most modern telescopes have moved well beyond simple achromatic doublets. And actually, several other species have evolved the same thing, independently, since, including the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterflies that are currently devouring my broccoli. Oddly enough, when I pull 'em off and stomp 'em. the advanced optics don't seem to be much of a help.
Drag yourself away from the creationist tracts and read a real scientific account of tribolite eyes. It's a good article.