<p>Data science and statistics is multi- / inter- / cross-disciplinary. The image below from <a href="https://www.r-bloggers.com/how-to-replace-a-pie-chart/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.r-bloggers.com/how-to-replace-a-pie-chart/</a> shows this well</p>
<p><em>The amount of time spent on various tasks by surveyed managers in data-science positions</em></p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yh5eG.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yh5eG.png" alt="bar-chart" /></a></p>
<hr />
<h3>Type of questions on datascience.stackexchange</h3>
<p>Questions on data science are like (picking the latest 9):</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38225/how-to-determine-filter-size-and-number-of-filters-layers-in-cnn">how-to-determine-filter-size-and-number-of-filters-layers-in-cnn</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38222/regression-of-discrete-continuous-averaged-data">regression-of-discrete-continuous-averaged-data</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38221/timestamps-in-ridge-regression-scikit-learn">timestamps-in-ridge-regression-scikit-learn</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38217/whats-the-best-metric-for-evaluate-an-estimator-for-a-multi-class-problem-with">whats-the-best-metric-for-evaluate-an-estimator-for-a-multi-class-problem-with</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38216/appending-dataframes-to-lists-in-a-dictionary-why-does-it-seem-like-the-list-i">appending-dataframes-to-lists-in-a-dictionary-why-does-it-seem-like-the-list-i</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38213/pass-2-different-kinds-of-x-training-data-to-ml-model-simultaneously">pass-2-different-kinds-of-x-training-data-to-ml-model-simultaneously</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38211/what-is-new-population-in-genetic-algorithm">what-is-new-population-in-genetic-algorithm</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38205/dropout-on-which-layers-of-lstm">dropout-on-which-layers-of-lstm</a></p>
</li>
<li><p><a href="https://datascience.stackexchange.com/questions/38203/var-model-valueerror-x-already-contains-a-constant">var-model-valueerror-x-already-contains-a-constant</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I will agree that this is debatable, however the <em>overall</em> picture and feel of the data science website is much different to me (much closer to computer science, informatics, computational science).</p>
<p>It is not so easy to put exactly into words <em>how</em> they are different from the questions at cross validated, but when you look at it then I would say it is not difficult to see <em>that</em> they are different from the questions at cross validated.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Performance of datascience.stackexchange</h3>
<p>The datascience.stackexchange seems to do well (At least the <em>quantity</em> goes well like the number of questions and answers <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5406/164061">is growing well</a> and seems to be adding a larger user base to the entire network. I would very much agree that quality is a lot more debatable).</p>
<p>Adding to this that the questions and answers over there look to me much different than at Cross Validated (not necessarily different based on topic or discipline, but more like a different orientation and a style that is less strongly based on rigorous, purely mathematical, foundations. It is along the lines of the difference between technology vs science even though it is called data-&quot;science&quot;).</p>
<p>Based on that the site has some good properties to stay.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Analogous case 'bioinformatics'</h3>
<p>Apparently there is also a beta website for <a href="https://bioinformatics.stackexchange.com/">bioinformatics</a>. This is another stackexchange site where the differences might be more clear and it shows a bit of an analogy to my point here about the data science site. Many similar arguments exist that it should be contained or split up to one or more of SO, CV, DataScience or Biology. However I think that arguments about similarities do not have much ground. Bio-informatics/-statistics is the same but different as well</p>
<hr />
<h3>Analogous case 'difference between languages'</h3>
<p>Since this answer seems to attract a lot of negative votes, I would wish to add one more analogy.</p>
<p>I hope that this will clarify a bit more the intention of this answer.</p>
<ul>
<li>I would <em>not</em> like to give so much a clear answer in the sense that this answer is clearly in favour of differentiating data-science and statistics, and especially in the <em>practical</em> case whether they deserve to be different topics on the stackexchange network (which involves many more arguments than just the <em>principle</em> whether they are different or not)</li>
<li>However, in the other answers I sense little acknowledgement for the difference between datascience and statistics. I would like this answer to show that there is at least an alternative viewpoint. We <em>can</em> see, in principle and from particular viewpoints, datascience and statistics as different.</li>
</ul>
<p>So the analogy that I have in mind is the Limburgian language. Limburg is a region in the southeast-tip of the Netherlands and borders Germany and France. The people over there speak a different language than the people in the rest of the Netherlands. It is constantly being debated whether this language should be considered a dialect or a language on it's own (linguists do not really make the differentiation between languages and dialects and speak more about a continuum, but the same happens here where we do not really have a difference between a rank of disciplines, like statistics vs datascience, and deal with a continuum).</p>
<p>Limburgian is often considered, by many Dutch people, as just <em>a variation of the Dutch language</em>. However, Limburgian is officialy recognized as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_language" rel="nofollow noreferrer">regional language</a>. And interestingly an important argument (from the linguists) is that the Limburgian language has <em>more</em> in common with neighboring French and German, and because of that should be considered as clearly <em>distinct</em> from the Dutch language (even when most Dutch people believe otherwise or do not recognize/acknowledge the differences).</p>
