Harvard psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker is a fierce advocate for intellectual and academic freedom — and one of the world’s most prominent and provocative thinkers about human language, the mind, and how societies work. He joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with an 800-strong Melbourne audience to discuss his latest book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage. Steven Pinker doesn’t shy away from controversy — amidst the Trump administration's attacks on his own university he recently penned a NYT piece titled <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/opinion/harvard-university-trump-administration.html">Harvard Derangement Syndrome</a> — challenging the cancellation, character assassination and censorship of scholars who investigate controversial ideas.This event and Steven Pinker's Australian tour was organised by <a href="https://au.thinkable.events/">Thinkable.Events</a>This event and Steven Pinker's Australian tour was organised by <a href="https://au.thinkable.events/">Thinkable.Events</a>Speaker<a href="https://stevenpinker.com/">Steven Pinker</a><a href="https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/steven-pinker">Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University</a>Co-founder, <a href="https://sites.harvard.edu/cafh/">Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard</a>Author of 13 books includingWhen Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage (2025).The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.The Language Instinct.Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress .Rationality: What It Is, Why it Seems Scarce, and Why It Matters.

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