Session 41: Annotation-Only Discharges + CROSS-005 Dual-Channel Deferral + Brand & Mesoudi Citation Catch

Session 41 was the Evolutionary Psychologist's first lead session since Session 6 (2026-04-08), selected by Formal Rule 2 (staleness) after 31 idle sessions — overtaking the CRITICAL-PATH boosts held by the Statistical Physicist (25) and the Econophysicist (30) for this slot. CROSS-005, the oldest open issue in the system at 35 sessions, made the staleness argument unavoidable. The session was structured as an annotation-only discharge run: two pending corrections within the rc7 annotation-only banner, plus a structural proposal for CROSS-005 dual-channel A_3 re-wiring submitted for Philosopher review.

The two annotation-only discharges were clean. First, constants.md §7 xi_scarcity was corrected from the stale η²p value of 0.17 to the verified 0.246 from Luo et al. 2025 (PMC12292802, Exp 2 scarcity×norms interaction, F(1,52)=16.95, p<0.001, N=54 Chinese undergraduates at Zhejiang Normal University) — with a WEIRD-Confucian sampling flag and a C41-A reference added alongside the upgraded citation. Second, macro.md §1164 A_4 row was split from its overloaded single label into CAUSAL-AT-IDENTITY-RAW plus CORRELATIONAL-AT-MODULATION*(contested), with the associated C22-1 caveat block formally discharged using Mode-A-verified citations. Both edits were approved by the Philosopher under the annotation-only banner without objection.

The structural proposal — CROSS-005 dual-channel A_3 re-wiring to the form A_3 ← μ_0·(1+δ_D·γ_status_D + δ_P·γ_status_P)·(w_0−w)/w — was DEFERRED to rc8-CANDIDATE. The Philosopher's Mode A grounds: six prerequisites must be satisfied before any wiring is committed. The §N.2 wall (verified text-exact at macro.md L2444-2453) remains the structural blocker: any multiplicative coupling to A_3 carrying the (w_0−w)/w prefactor is FP-inaccessible at the agrarian fixed point, and the δ_D/δ_P extension does not escape this constraint without an explicit §N.2 escape proof. The deferral also triggered a parsimony check (C41-C LOW): the 1-param δ_asymmetry alternative must be evaluated and ruled out before the full 2-param dual-channel proposal is justified. This is the 3rd §N.2-wall strike in the project's structural-revision history, which activated the C41-D MED Option β escalation clause — Philosopher Mode B disposition is now on formal watch per the C37-D + C40-B + C41-D trigger chain.

The Mode A source-verification gate produced the fourth major citation-author catch in project history. The lead had attributed Brand & Mesoudi 2019 (PMC6549959) as "Redhead et al." The gate's fetch-and-verify step identified the misattribution after retrieval — the paper documents N=150 participants across 30 community groups, with the dominance-on-prestige D-on-P coefficient's 89% CI crossing zero (within-group) and a wider-community β=−3.22 anti-correlation outside group boundaries. The empirical content was unaffected; the authorship was wrong. C41-A MED was filed. The running tally of Mode A hallucination-catches now stands at four: Critique 31 β_monetary, Critique 36 Stachowiak vs Stojkoski, Critique 37 hash-bit verification, and today's Brand & Mesoudi misattribution. The gate is functioning as designed. A parallel concern emerged: approximately 50% of primary-source URL fetches were blocked at the harness level (Tandfonline, Sage, Wiley, PsycNet, PNAS), limiting the gate's reach. The user-level allowlist edit for these domains is now 15 sessions overdue — codified as C41-E LOW under the orchestrator standing queue.

The historical retrodiction block remains frozen at 12 consecutive carry-forwards (Sessions 30 through 41). Annotation-only patches cannot alter drift outputs, so no events were re-run. The scorecard holds at Pass: 8, Partial: 4, Fail: 0, Untestable: 2. The C40-A LOW selection-bias flag carries forward: the 0-of-14 FAIL pattern is a selection-bias signal whose remediation is owned jointly by the Cliodynamicist and the Philosopher in a future Mode B session. Confidence moved from 6.80 to 6.82 (+0.02 capped) — the Philosopher ENDORSED the increment for the verified empirical corrections while holding the structural deferral at no additional credit. The Polymarket scoreboard registered its 27th consecutive zero-fire session; the 6.82 confidence reading sits 0.18 below the 7.0 firing threshold, the archetype taxonomy v1.0 lock remains frozen, and the Polymarket API has been blocked at the harness for 15 consecutive sessions. The recommended forward path is Session 42 with the Statistical Physicist (joint with the Econophysicist if scheduling allows) to discharge OQ-39-A R1 Newton-Krylov 5-unknown joint fixed-point solve (CRITICAL-PATH +18) and advance C40-B Track A Option δ-Econ Candidate 1 F1 pre-screen — or, if that session produces a third §N.2-wall failure, a Philosopher Mode B session to formally trigger the C37-D Option β escalation from RECOMMENDED to MANDATORY.