Bayesian Filters vs IF statements
Joel Spolsky talked about something Adam Bosworth mentioned to him after Bosworth moved from
Microsoft to Google. Apparently Bosworth said something along the lines of “Google uses Bayesian
filters like Microsoft uses the IF statement”.
The discussion went on to discuss how that mentality allows Google to always think in the mindset where
they know that there are a million things being returned from search, but these are the ten that the
person might be looking for. That got me thinking about life science search. When we are looking for a
paper, or some scientific topic, what are we looking for? What do we expect back?
Go to next section.
Joel Spolsky talked about something Adam Bosworth mentioned to him after Bosworth moved from
Microsoft to Google. Apparently Bosworth said something along the lines of “Google uses Bayesian
filters like Microsoft uses the IF statement”.
The discussion went on to discuss how that mentality allows Google to always think in the mindset where
they know that there are a million things being returned from search, but these are the ten that the
person might be looking for. That got me thinking about life science search. When we are looking for a
paper, or some scientific topic, what are we looking for? What do we expect back?
Go to next section.
 | |  | |  |