Starfish are found to have "primitive" image-forming eyes on the tips of their arms. Do these represent links between simple and complex eyes? Some reporters seem to think so.
Anything "could" happen. Shouldn't science deal with what does happen and what did happen? The "could" word is rampant in astrobiology literature and origin-of-life studies.
The news media jumped onto claims that a tiny primate fossil is an ancestor of human beings, when it is really an amazing example of biological miniaturization.