berlin113 this is a phrase that has always fascinated me, if it is true who decides that we have to repeat the same mistakes?
The empirical law of mathematical probability, combined with either (your choice):
. . . (a) the social/psychological law of human nature; or
. . . (b) the biological law of evolution.
That could be abbreviated by simply using one word "science", which is essentially knowledge vis observation and experiment.
In either case, a species/population shares consistent traits and society/current technology presents consistent hurdles; therefore, members of the population will eventually (a) make the same mistakes in attempting to overcome the hurdles, unless (b) they have observed the empirical results of a sufficiently-similar prior experiment (aka "history" / "scientific observation").
:-)
To fellow scientists, yes, I'm intentionally using the term "law" incorrectly because when using the proper term among layman, it always results in a debate as a result of their misunderstanding of the scientific context of "theory".