In December of 1978 the New York State Board of Regents ordered the New York State Education Department to conduct a detailed study of the way in which the subject of origins should be treated in a revised version of the Regents Biology Syllabus. The author was invited to supply scientific information to the Bureau of Science Education, which was conducting the study. During 1979, interviews were conducted with experts in five museums containing some of the largest fossil collections in the world. These experts were: Colin Patterson (Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History); Niles Eldridge (Invertebrate Paleontologist, American Museum of Natural History); David Raup (Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History); Donald D. Fisher (State Paleontologist, New York State Education Department); and David Pilbeam (Curator of Peabody Museum of Natural History). During the interviews, the paleontologists were questioned about the nature of the fossil record from the Pre-Cambrian to recent time. All of these scientists believe that all living and fossil organisms were derived from a common ancestor in an unbroken evolutionary lineage. None of them believes in the creation theory that functionally complete original organisms were created and placed upon the earth by an intelligence or power external to the universe. (JN)