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An estimation method that can use computer simulations to approximate maximum-likelihood estimates even when the likelihood function can not be evaluated directly. It can be applied whenever it is feasible to conduct many simulations, but works best when the data is approximately Poisson distributed. It was originally designed for demographic inference in evolutionary biology (Naduvilezhath et al., 2011 doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05131.x, Mathew et al., 2013 doi:10.1002/ece3.722). It has optional support for conducting coalescent simulation using the 'coala' package.