  In contrast to the situation in a laboratory, the study of the solar
atmosphere has to be pursued without direct access to the physical conditions
of interest. Information is therefore incomplete and uncertain and inference
methods need to be employed to diagnose the physical conditions and processes.
One of such methods, solar atmospheric seismology, makes use of observed and
theoretically predicted properties of waves to infer plasma and magnetic field
properties. A recent development in solar atmospheric seismology consists in
the use of inversion and model comparison methods based on Bayesian analysis.
In this paper, the philosophy and methodology of Bayesian analysis are first
explained. Then, we provide an account of what has been achieved so far from
the application of these techniques to solar atmospheric seismology and a
prospect of possible future extensions.
