[[Bootstrapping statistics]] is a particularly popular non-parametric approach. Bootstrapping is computationally costly and has only recently become feasible for most data sets. It involves [[sampling with replacement]] from the given data set perhaps as many as 100,000 times in order to determine mean, error, best fits and comparisons of data sets.
==Misuse of statistics ==
Statistical data can often be manipulated to make it seem like it proves a certain hypothesis, whereas in actuality it does not. Because of the advanced mathematics involved in computing some statistics, people can sometimes be deceived by this. This type of deceit has been used by politicians and their supporters to give a false impression of voter preferences, for example. It can also be used by scientists with their own agendas (e.g. atheistic) to try to "prove" various otherwise unsupported theories (e.g. [[evolution]]).
==References==