FAQ: Difference between Data Mining and Statistics

KDnuggets : FAQ : Difference between Data Mining and Statistics

Difference between Data Mining and Statistics

Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro: Statistics is at the core of data mining - helping to distinguish between random noise and significant findings, and providing a theory for estimating probabilities of predictions, etc.

However Data Mining is more than Statistics. DM covers the entire process of data analysis, including data cleaning and preparation and visualization of the results, and how to produce predictions in real-time, etc.

Susan Imberman: covered this topic in a data mining course she taught.
Here are her notes on Data Mining vs. Statistics.

KDnuggets : FAQ : Data Mining