Despite the pun, I do regard the question as a serious one, and one of manageable size compared to the other well-known Whither problems that confront us as human beings. Let me begin by saying that of course I disagree with the position expressed by Professor Lindley, an abstract of whose paper I have had the privilege of seeing. The attitude that says 'Burn all the books, for if what they say is in the Koran they are unnecessary, and if not they are blasphemous' is a familiar one, though not often stated explicitly by practicing scientists. If indeed the future of statistics is to include an exclusively Bayesian 21st century, then the question mark can be removed from my title. However, I don't think Professor Lindley's prediction has a high probability except in his personal sense, so I think we should feel free to consider some alternatives to the Dark Age that he envisions. This branch of mathematical science is a relatively new one. Two sources that I have found most informative concerning its 'early' history are Karl Pearson's three-volume work on the life, letters and labours of Sir Francis Galton, and the British statistical journals during the period 1920-40 that contain the famous controversies involving R.A. Fisher, J. Neyman and E.S. Pearson, and their sometimes bewildered contemporaries of lesser rank. It would be a most useful thing, especially during times when nothing really new and important seems to be going on, for students and professors to acquaint themselves with at least this much of the historical background of their subject. An intense preoccupation with the latest technical minutiae, and indifference to the social and intellectual forces of tradition and revolutionary change, combine to produce the Mandarinism that some would now say already characterises academic statistical theory and is most likely to describe its immediate future.