Given the inaccessibility of Lock's primary evidence it is difficult to dispute conclusions he has reached based upon that evidence. While I would be pleased if this were so, Lock's assertion rests upon the fact that only about half of his sample reported experience with dissection. However, it should be noted that the students were of an age that would place them in grades nine and ten in North America. Lock's data present an interesting paradox. Lock proposes that teachers should make the objectives of dissection explicit, yet his own results imply that this is already the case.
Students are able to explain why they are using dissection because they have been told.
I agree with Lock's proposition that there is a need for more detailed and rigorous research in this area, particularly concerning the relative effectiveness of alternatives. The alternatives to dissection are reviewed in my paper, along with some evidence that the most sophisticated techniques are less used than they could be. I shall cite three examples by way of illustration. Computer simulations, for instance, can be used to permit interactive manipulation and monitoring of physiological variables such as blood pressure and arterial oxygen or carbon dioxide pressure over lengthy periods of time. The defense of outmoded, traditional practice in education is replete with statements like this.