With or without is

[nyggus]

Hi, which one is better? --
"John Smith stated that computer methods are not able to recognize those patterns better than a human is," or
"John Smith stated that computer methods are not able to recognize those patterns better than a human."
Best,
Nyggus

[rewboss]

It depends on what you are trying to say. The first sentence means that computer methods can recognize those patterns, and humans can recognize those patters, but humans are better at it than computers. The second sentence means that computer methods can recognize those patterns, and computer methods can recognize a human, but recognizing patterns is easier.

However, because these are very long sentences and the difference is in the very last word, it might be better to formulate them differently:

John Smith stated that computers are not as good as humans at recognizing those patterns.
John Smith stated that computers are not as good at recognizing humans as they are at recognizing those patterns.