I finally figured out the best way to respond to this. The central concept of Machine Learning is self-improvement of the models that are used, based on data a

I finally figured out the best way to respond to this. The central concept of Machine Learning is self-improvement of the models that are used, based on data alone. That is NOT the central concept of Statistics. So yes, Machine Learning may be related to, part of, semantically linked, a subset of, or whatever you want to say there, but the fact that Machine Learning is designed to self-improve is (in my opinion anyway) the reason it should be considered a "new" way of evaluating the world. Saying it's all just Statistics sounds a lot like calling consciousness "just another information processing mechanism" (yawn). I know it's not that big of a difference, but it's similar. Self-improvement of data analysis models matter enough to warrant the separate name and the attention that comes with it.