Nik Narain

Articles

OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Is my algorithm transphobic? And other questions for the algorithm

By Nik Narain | 6 days ago

But the more I found myself on trans YouTube, and LGBTQ+ YouTube in general, the more I found myself surrounded by blatant queerphobic rhetoric. As in, the more I tried to look for information about LGBTQ+ topics, the more I found my For You page on YouTube suddenly full of armchair activists weighing in on the “trans debate”; therapists encouraging what is essentially a diluted form of conversion therapy and news anchors “roasting woman with pronouns.”

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Scientology and the dangers of neuroessentialism

By Nik Narain | October 28, 2024

Scientology can feel like this momentous connection between the two, a bridge between science and the spiritual, a biological essentialism to questions often regarded to be supernatural. But bringing an essentialist argument into a spiritual intervention is more fertile ground for psychiatric abuse than it is for self-transcendence.

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Searching for resonance in a sea of contention: A coming out piece

By Nik Narain | October 11, 2024

I feel like my collegiate life has been measured in these cycles of self-beration, self-liberation, self-deliberation and back again, a recognizable oscillation that has served as the drumbeat for my own semblance of self-transformation as a young adult (emphasis on the trans). I’ve spent so long trying to rationalize my reasons for shifting place in a system that is, at its core, irrational, one whose rigidity and unnecessary reinforcement has been the cause of suffering, violence and death for too many people around the world.

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Imagining the restorative justice crime drama

By Nik Narain | September 28, 2024

With crime TV being one of the most popular genres, media has played a major role in shaping our relationship with crime and punishment, sometimes as major as the policies around criminal justice themselves. It’s certainly not my position to tell you what to watch and not watch, but perhaps this piece can offer a nuanced perspective on the dark realities of these stories that not only miseducate but perpetuate harmful ideas about crime that inevitably contributes to real-life violence.

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Drag science and the slaying of nerd aesthetic

By Nik Narain | September 14, 2024

If the goal of SciComm is not just to improve the dissemination of scientific information, but to promote excitement and engagement for science itself, what better way to do that than through drag, which enables performers to celebrate science on such a personal level?

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Listening to flat-earthers

By Nik Narain | August 31, 2024

Why, from such a young age, was I indoctrinated into the ideology that claimed the Earth was round, rather than the true geomorphic tortilla (or tortilloid) on which civilization has flourished for centuries?

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Why do people still not believe in climate change?

By Nik Narain | April 18, 2024

This broken relationship between the ivory tower and the much larger rest of the world furthers distrust in evidence-based research and all of science as a whole.

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Why nutrition studies keep contradicting each other

By Nik Narain | April 4, 2024

How do we eat in a way that aligns with our values against a constant moral battleground around food? How do we determine what is actually “good for us” and the world around us against a system of scientific information ripe with contradiction?

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

A love letter to our cool, queer universe

By Nik Narain | March 7, 2024

If science is the most epic narrative of who we are, how things work and how we got here, what’s more beautiful than connecting your own story within that narrative — especially if it not only helps you remember science but celebrate it?

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OPINION | CAMPUS VOICES

Is science only meant for learning?

By Nik Narain | February 22, 2024

It pains me when people say they don’t like science because it’s “boring,” because that’s the only way they’ve ever experienced science: as incremental information overload until it becomes less overwhelming.

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