In the scientific community one's research must undergo "peer review." This is the process of a thorough vetting of one's conclusions, methods, data and experiment as a whole. The process can be hard and painful --no one likes to be told your research of 18 months has some flaws and needs to be redone-- but it is vital to make sure that members of the scientific community are using good science.

Recently Dr. Benjamin of MMA Junkie wrote an article that explained why he doesn't approve of five-minute rounds for female MMA. Many construed his conclusions as sexists. Dr. Benjamin wrote a follow up, saying that medical evidence backs up his conclusions.

Think of this article as a "peer review" for Dr. Benjamin's initial two articles.

[Disclaimer: If you haven't read Dr. Benjamin's articles do so before drawing your own conclusions about WKR's article of Dr. Benjamin's article.]

In Dr. Benjamin's first article he described his apprehension towards female mixed martial arts. Part of this wariness was due to comments of sexual innuendo by "fans". The cusp of the argument centered around this point,

"I am not a fan of five-minute rounds for WMMA because studies have suggested that the likelihood for injury significantly increases as athletes (male or female) tire, especially with contact and combat athletes. In most of the WMMA contests that I have watched, fatigue becomes amajor factor with the current three-minute rounds.

Five-minute rounds may be acceptable for the elite competitors. But to increase the potential duration of three-round fights by 67 percent and five-round fights by 178 percent across the board may be jeopardizing fighters' safety. "

Many found these comments and conclusions to be unfair and border line sexists. One of the most prominent critics was the owner of MixedMartialArts.com.

Dr. Benjamin responded with an article outlining the correlations between fatigue and injuries. The initial debate was not about medical research into fatigue an injury rates but rather Dr. Benjamin's conclusion about this fact specifically what it meant for female MMA. Dr. Benjamin concluded that the potential for an increased injury rate was reason enough to oppose lengthening the rounds from three to five minutes. However the implication many drew from the articles was that Dr. Benjamin was asserting that women are not capable enough athletes to compete at the same level as men in MMA. While Dr. Benjamin tried to make the nuanced point that women's MMA is still young with varying degrees of athletes, this point was lost as to the larger blanket conclusion: an increase in the length of rounds will cause an increase in injuries to female athletes thus we should be opposed to it.

The problem with Dr. Benjamin's position is not that he is using medical data but what conclusions he draws from said data.

[It should be noted that there are some serious rhetorical flaws in Dr. Benjamin's thesis and I would invite readers to view Ryan Harkness' response to Dr. Benjamin's initial thesis. For the sake of uniformity WKR will focus in on the implications of what Dr. Benjamin's logic would mean for female athletics.]

WKR is not accusing Dr. Benjamin of being a sexist and such accusations are unfounded and do not help advance the discussion. That being said, it is very easy to empathize with someone that identifies Dr. Benjamin's comments as sexist (for a further distinction on the difference between being intolerant and saying something intolerant I would suggest watching this video via NPR). But there are some troubling issues with Dr. Benjamin's position and what some individuals may draw from said conclusions

The serious flaw in this argument is when we take it to its logical conclusion. Case in point, the rate of ACL injuries of female athletes when compared to male athletes (some studies have the rate at 3 to 4 times that of their male counter parts).

If we were to use Dr. Benjamin's logic then the fact that women are more likely to suffer an ACL injury automatically prevents them from competing at the same level as men. One would then conclude that the higher injury risk to female athletes (risk of ACL tears) should prevent women from playing basketball in a manner similar to men. That being required to run up-and-down the court puts women at a higher risk for injury.

Ironically female basketball did exist in such a conception until 1970. Before 1970 female basketball players were limited to "zones" and a player could not leave a zone. For those familiar with lacrosse think of the basketball court being divided into three zones, offensive, defensive and middle. In 1938 the number of zones was reduced to two. If someone were to articulate such assertions about female basketball today their comments would certainly be construed as sexists.

Thus we begin to see the major flaw with Dr. Benjamin's argument. That his conclusion from the medical data creates a barrier based upon sex, something our society does not believe in.