There are obvious patterns over Ferdinand Braudel’s long duration of history, that we can see within the philosophical and scientific history of ‘Western Civilisation’.   Being a simple man of average intelligence trained in science and technology, I would say there are 3 overriding key patterns.

Pattern 1: The migration of philosophy and ‘science’ from individual efforts and small schools (the medieval period), to that of statism and state control (the ‘modern’ leviathan). The ‘state complex’ is now the arbiter of ‘Science’ once aided by the printing press, now supported by extensive digital technology and media.

Pattern 2: The return to the pagan philosophies of materialism (only matter is real) and nominalism (reality does not exist, nothing is objective). These patterns are regressive not ‘progressive’.

Pattern 3: The obvious philosophical foundation of all ‘science’. In reality, science is a branch of philosophy.  More here