This invention pertains generally to the field of multivariate statistics, and in particular to new methods for the analysis (e.g., chemometrics) of chemical, biochemical, and biological data, including, for example, spectral data, including but not limited to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral data. These methods are useful, for example, in metabonomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, genomics, etc., and form a part of other methods, for example, methods for the identification of chemical species, methods for the identification of biomarkers that are useful in methods of classification, diagnosis, prognosis, etc.