One of the many questions arising from the Orlando shooting tragedy is the nature of Islam. While there may be other factors, clearly the shooter’s (I refuse to say his name) motivation is rooted in his Islamic faith — he said so himself. Ideological violence can come from members of other religions or of no religion. But while terrorism and violence can be connected to non-Islamic ideologies, we hear of more violence done in the name of Allah than in the name of other religious and non-religious ideologies. Is there something unique within Islam that makes violence much more likely to occur?

This is not an easy question to answer, but it is important. As a sociologist committed to a balanced and (as far as it is possible) objective view, I think it’s important to consider various possibilities and options with a carefully open perspective.

If Islam has a unique capacity to motivate violence, then there are important implications for how we can best handle problems of terrorism. Further, how we approach it will depend on what we think it is about Islam that motivates such violence. For example, it is possible that Islam creates more violence today because it has not undergone the same sort of modernist evolution other religions have. Given time we may see a dramatic downtick in Muslim terrorism, to match the low violence propensities of other major world religions. Or perhaps there is no real correspondence between Islam and violence, but rather we pay more attention to Islamic violence than other types of violence due to certain ethnic stereotypes we have of Middle-Easterners. If either of these is the case, then we may merely need to allow Muslim ideology to fully modernize and/or watch out for our own biases.

On the other hand, it is possible that there is something inherent in the Muslim faith that leads its followers to be more violent than followers of other ideologies. Perhaps there is a unique authoritarian aspect of Islam that is troubling. The motivation behind the establishment of Sharia law may be incompatible with peaceful coexistence with those who believe differently. If so, then waiting for the “moderates” of the Islamic faith to lead the faith toward more peaceful norms may be a waste of time, and dangerous besides.

Wise handling of Islamic terrorism requires knowing whether Islam’s potential to inspire violence is of an ordinary nature requiring ordinary measures like the passage of time and/or checking our biases, or whether it is of a more exceptional nature. Social scientists have the tools to investigate this important question — yet I have no confidence that they will do so with the rigor the question deserves.

The reason for my doubt is based in a theme I have come to time and again — academic bias. Whenever there is an academic question where the political forces have predetermined the answer, we always have to worry about academic bias. President Obama’s reluctance to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” is linked to a political ideology mandating that all religions be treated as having the same propensity for violence. Note how easily Obama brings up the Crusades when the topic of Islamic terrorism comes up. There is nothing accidental about his equalizing the Crusades and today’s terrorism. He is overtly linking the two, implying that Christians are no better than Muslims as it concerns violence. He is making a plea for patience so Islam can develop to the point of Christianity and other religions in its willingness to use violence.

This could be the correct path. Perhaps Muslims will evolve in their religion to the point to where terrorism is reduced to occasional outbursts far in between each other by individuals who do not understand modern Islam. But it could be wrong; it could inhibit us from taking the type of action we need to prevent more Orlandos from taking place. With a predetermined answer we cannot know which is true.

How do I know the answer is predetermined? I try to imagine a researcher approaching the question, asking, “Is Islam inherently violent or not?” I try to imagine how that researcher could even possibly arrive at the conclusion that Islam is innately violent. Could he or publish that result in an academic journal or book? Would the reaction to it be scholarly or polemical? Given the type of education dogma in our current academic environment I am certain that it would be more polemical than scholarly. Anyone working on the question of the source of Islamic violence will soon learn what answer he or she is supposed to produce. To conclude that Islam is inherently violent is effectively impossible, even if it may be true. So no true investigation into the question can ever actually take place.

The sad part is that I am open to the possibility that Islam is no more inherently violent than any other religion. But because I know that the research on it has been done with a predetermined answer, I cannot take it seriously. When I read scholarship claiming that Islam is a religion of peace, I acknowledge that it might be right, but I cannot trust that it is.

This is one of the ways academic bias removes our ability to advance academic knowledge. When I wrote my book on academic bias, I stated that I had two reasons for writing the book. One was clearly for the sake of groups — such as conservative Christians — who are victimized by this bias. But the other reason was because I wanted us to have trustworthy science. In light of the Orlando shooting, perhaps more individuals will appreciate the true social cost of our tolerance toward academic bias.