Don't tell that to the flight attendants. After all, that is the rationale for dimming the cabin lights for take off and landing so that in event of a passenger evacuation, the evacuees (men, women and children while the captain is supposed to go down with his ship) will have their eyes accustomed the dark as they go down the slides.
Yeah. The more you think about it, the less that makes sense: you'd start 20mins before takeoff with very low level red lighting if you really wanted them to be dark adapted - which gets ruined as soon as the emergency lights come on, especially by the really bright ones shining down the escape slides!
It might be better to have the cabins excruciatingly brightly lit (sunglasses required), so that in the event of a nighttime evacuation, the passengers couldn't see to pick up their duty-free and luggage and didn't pause at the top of the slide because they didn't like the view...
