[wookietrader]

I really like the standard statistician stance "machine learning is basically just statistics". There is so much hate in it. :)

The FAQ is full of this. For those who want to know the difference--and there are two--let me add the following points:

(a) Most machine learners do not care that much about proper modelling. The point is not about having a right model of the data, but a useful model. Check Breimans "The two cultures" paper. (b) Machine learning actually cares about computation (Big O notation and such), something that is not part of the standard statistics curriculum.