That'd be it. Can you define the paradigm? State the idea and the method?
The classical AI approach was more about modeling, knowledge representation, inference rules, decision trees and so on. The only thing related to NKS the classics dabbled with were neural networks. Most of them were also very restricted, though - in order to have a shot at analyzing them, the common neural networks have relatively simple structures.
The idea of cellular automata is of course not from Wolfram, but he studied them to an impressive extent. To me they are just one variant of the theme, though. For me NKS is not the invention of evolutionary computation. But it portrays one part of it very well. And he argues that many things could be handled in that way, which was not obvious (I remember how he could imagine the real world to work like an cellular automaton, and still agree with quantum mechanics).
You still haven't said what is the scientifical idea.
Because I for one don't know. John McCarthy doesn't too, he once hoped to gain such knowledge by careful study, and later remarked regarding Wolfram "In the 1950s I thought that the smallest possible (symbol-state product) universal Turing machine would tell something about the nature of computation. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Instead as simpler universal machines were discovered, the proofs that they were universal became more elaborate, and [so] did the encodings of information."
how he could imagine the real world to work like an cellular automaton, and still agree with quantum mechanics
Oh, and he got that wrong too... (by the so called No Hidden Variables theorem).
But I am also not sure exactly what you want. For example, would it be strange to you if I found ants fascinating? Even though there is no scientific idea at first. Maybe if you look at ants for a while, you'll generate all sorts of ideas (and even in Goedel-Escher-Bach, which I guess is very classic AI, they make an appearance).
So I am not sure that I accept your complaint that you can see no scientifical idea. Actually I am not sure, what is a "scientifical idea"? (Honest question)
Looking at cellular automata I get all sorts of ideas. So I find them fascinating. And why is it not a "scientifical idea" for you to build complex things from simple rules? I don't think it is such an obvious idea.
I am willing to try to answer your question, but first please explain to me what aspect exactly you want to hear about ("scientifical idea").
As for McCarthy, I don't really worry much about what he thinks, especially since LISP is actually from the "classic AI" side of things (I don't mean that as disrespectful - but he is a specialist for LISP and computation, not for complex systems). I think finding the smallest Turing machine was just something to be done for fun - I don't think Wolfram thought much more about it either. So that finding it did not blow McCarthy's mind hardly disqualifies the whole subject in my opinion.
Also, could you link to the No Hidden Variables vs Wolframs suggestion please? It was only a wildly speculative thing, even in NKS, though - not the cornerstone of his world view.
