Manuscript revision and pending experiment work, snapshot before restructuring

Clarity pass over the main text (36-item audit), Discussion rewrite and cut,
acknowledgements, Souly et al. as ref 62, lettered SI panels, model section
moved under Results; plus the untracked curriculum/society/compose/smol
configs, runners, figures, stats and tests that the SI already cites.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Y64o8FKP7rCuXzC48pxpMm

results/llm_curriculum_v5_early/README.md

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+# Conflict-arrival curricula — does the decline (and the collapse) follow conflict, or generation?
+
+**Claim tested (manuscript revision 2026-09-12).** In the Latin-square population the fraction of
+merges a lineage declines rose with generation, and the obligate-merge arm collapsed from generation
+4. Three things rise together there: adapter age, skill count, and the arrival of the two families
+whose answer conventions conflict (`boolq` yes/no, `winogrande` 1/2). The decorrelated curriculum
+separated complementarity from generation but not conflict arrival. These two curricula move ONLY
+conflict arrival: **conflict-early** puts `boolq`/`winogrande` in generations 1–2 of every lineage;
+**conflict-late** puts them in generations 5–6; the four compatible families fill the rest in
+rotated orders. Age and skill count rise one family per generation in both (tested in
+`tests/test_llm_curriculum.py`). Pre-registered readings: declines and collapse at generations 2–3
+in early and 5–6 in late → conflict arrival drives them; the same rise/collapse schedule in both →
+age or skill count.
+
+**Setup.** As `curriculum_v5` (Qwen2.5-1.5B base, 3 lineages, 6 generations, 300 new + 150 replay
+examples, rank-16 LoRA, 60 test items per family). Configs: `curriculum_v5_{early,late}.yaml`
+(arms `isolated` + declinable `society`) and `curriculum_v5_{early,late}_obl.yaml` (obligate
+`society`). Seeds 1–3 via `hpc/llm_curriculum_timing.pbs` (L40S, 20–40 min per element). Bundles:
+`results/llm_curriculum_v5_{early,late,early_obl,late_obl}/s{seed}/`. Figure
+`curriculum_timing.png` (this directory); numbers below from `figures/stats_llm_curriculum.py`.
+
+### Result — generation, not conflict arrival
+- **Declines rise with generation in both curricula on the same schedule** (mean fraction declined,
+  generations 1→6; conflict present from generation 2 in early, 6 in late):
+  early 0.56, 0.33, 0.67, 0.67, 0.89, 0.78 · late 0.44, 0.67, 0.44, 0.56, 0.78, 0.89
+  (Latin 0.44 → 1.00; decorrelated 0.44 → 0.89).
+- **Conflict-timing test** (partial Spearman of declined on a conflict-present indicator,
+  controlling for generation; seed-clustered bootstrap): early + late pooled, n = 36:
+  ρ(conflict | generation) = **−0.09**, 95% CI (−0.45, 0.15); ρ(generation | conflict) = **+0.45**.
+  All four curricula pooled, n = 72: ρ(conflict | generation) = −0.04, CI (−0.30, 0.15);
+  ρ(generation | conflict) = +0.39. Complementarity, pooled over four curricula with generation
+  controlled: +0.05, CI (−0.08, 0.20).
+- **Obligate collapse also follows generation.** Best-lineage all-families accuracy of the obligate
+  arm, generations 1→6, mean of 3 seeds: early 0.63, 0.61, 0.72, 0.68, 0.50, 0.28 · late 0.75,
+  0.76, 0.71, 0.61, 0.57, 0.44 (Latin 0.68 … 0.27). Conflict-early dips when the pair arrives
+  (generation 2), recovers to the others' level by generation 3, and collapses from generation 5;
+  conflict-late collapses from generation 4 with its conflicting pair still to come, and ends
+  less deep. Final obligate − isolated: early −0.517 ± 0.050, late −0.395 ± 0.053 (3/3 seeds each).
+- **Declinable arms finish level with never merging in both curricula:** early 0.777 vs 0.796
+  (per seed −0.022, −0.039, +0.003), late 0.791 vs 0.781 (+0.019, +0.003, +0.006).
+
+**Reading.** With conflict arrival moved by four generations, neither the decline curve nor the
+collapse moved with it. What remains confounded is adapter age with skill count (both rise one per
+generation by construction). The recombination-modifier reading (declines track complementarity)
+stays unsupported; the "conflict arrival explains the collapse" reading is now also unsupported at
+the level of timing, though conflicting conventions still set the per-pair error floor
+(Proposition S2) and the early-arrival dip is visible. Falsifier for the generation reading (not
+triggered): declines or collapse shifting by ≥ 3 generations between the two curricula.