 Although he thinks that the intelligence displayed by these examples suggests conscious thought, many critics have been disappointed by the lack of systematic connection between Griffin's examples and the attribution of consciousness (see, e.g., Alcock 1992). Griffin's main positive proposal in this respect has been the rather implausible suggestion that consciousness might have the function of compensating for limited neural machinery.  Thus Griffin is motivated to suggest that consciousness may be more important to honey bees than to humans.