Paper: Bayesian statistics and modelling

Bayesian statistics and modelling is an open access paper published by Nature Reviews as part of its first volume of Methods Primers. Bayesian statistics is an approach to data analysis based on Bayes' theorem, where available knowledge about parameters in a statistical model is updated with the information in observed data. The background knowledge is expressed as a prior distribution and combined with observational data in the form of a likelihood function to determine the posterior distribution. The posterior can also be used for making predictions about future events. This Primer paper describes the stages involved in Bayesian analysis, from specifying the prior and data models to deriving inference, model checking and refinement.