Like all biological structures, explaining the vertebrate eye—or any eye for that matter—is a challenge to neo-Darwinism (modern synthesis). When conventional scientists attempt to describe eye evolution, they begin with a simple or “primitive” visual system and extrapolate, vaguely gesturing to mystical evolution by natural selection, to explain the highly sophisticated vertebrate eye.

Hawaiians call their state fish the humuhumunukunukuapua’a, or humuhumu for short, and snorkelers marvel at its wild paint job as it flits beneath basalt reefs.