The recent article by Hamaker (1977) in this journal posed the question as to whether or not statisticians are decision makers and concluded that they were not or ought not to be. From this conclusion he then postulated and developed an argument which implied the impracticability of Bayesian Decision Theory. A quick reading of Hamaker's argument could well leave an unfortunate impression of the true situation. I would like to present the picture that he paints in a rather different context, and to draw some divergent conclusions from my own analysis of the situation. It would seem that, in this debate, we have to distinguish very carefully between two distinct forms of activity: The first form of activity is that of the expert; whether he be a statistician, an accountant, a lawyer, a surveyor, an actuary, a doctor, etc. He, or she, will have been trained in the knowledge, skills and professional codes of practice of the particular profession concerned and will use this professional expertise to the best advantage of his client. The second form of activity is the making of decisions, which normally rests with the client who is receiving the advice from one or more experts. In doing this, he will be taking into account not only the advice and information provided by one or more experts, but also his own inputs to the total framework for the decision that has to be made, for example, on the relative weights to be placed on different outcomes. A simple, but nevertheless tricky, example might be that of a possible operation on a semiblind person. The sight has gone in one of his eyes and is poor in the other eye. An operation on the latter could, if successful, improve the sight greatly but, if unsuccessful, could lead to total incurable blindness more quickly. For purposes of discussion we put on one side the costs involved in performing such an operation. What should be done? The consultant may well be able to give expert advice as to the likely success or failure of the operation, but it is only the man himself who can weigh up the consequences of sight or blindness has he a family to support, how old is he, etc., and make the final decision as to whether to go ahead or not. To make such a decision for him is to extend the expert role and usurp the decision-making role.