Bayesian Communication of Research Results over the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web provides a unique opportunity to reconsider how the results of scientific studies can best be presented to clinicians. For decades statisticians, philosophers, medical investigators, and others interested in data analysis have assumed that the Bayesian paradigm is the proper approach for reporting the findings of scientific analyses for use by client computers and readers. At the heart of that approach is the inclusion of the reader's preexisting knowledge and beliefs. Yet, to date, the methods for inclusion have been too complicated for non-statisticians to use. We believe that the World Wide Web provides an ideal environment for putting the Bayesian paradigm into practice: the author publishes the data from the server side, the reader uses the client to represent her or his prior belief, and a downloaded program (a Java applet) combines the two. This article describes a prototype implementation for two-arm clinical trials with normally distributed outcomes.