GHOST establishes a three-link proof chain in a minimal non-LLM substrate: the genome→behavior space is evolvable under direct grading (α), competent lineages persist in the living ecology (β-sustain), and starting from random founders the ecology itself drives mean intrinsic competence upward (β-improve).
The central β-improve result shows Δ ≈ +0.026 intrinsic foraging efficiency (95% CI [0.016, 0.041]) across 32 seeds with 28 positive, zero extinctions, and replication on independent seeds. Ecological selection is weaker than ranked artificial selection—roughly half the climb—but genuinely directional.
Read the full preprint on the GHOST project page.