[Stultis]

One might argue that small ears contribute to the likelihood of a colder native climate, but that is not the same as saying that it is PROOF of one view and other views are thereby disproved.

Of course not. Science deals in evidence for and against theories and hypotheses, not "proof". And the anomalously small (compared to other elephants) mammoth ears are only one of a coordinated suite of features consistent with cold adaptation: body size and shape, hair, tusk configuration, etc. The author of your webpage doesn't seem to understand much of the evidence. I don't know if he's right about "erector muscles" on the hairs or not, but that's irrelevant to the mammoth's configuration. The thick, soft woolly underhair traps heat simply by it's fine texture and thickness, and the coarse guard hairs on the outside of the coat keep out the wind and shed moisture.

Fluffing/erecting the hair as the author suggests would not help keep the mammoths warm, as the author suggests. Quite the opposite. It would only perturb the whole system by also disturbing the guard hair layer and opening the lower layers to the environment.

Finally, mammoths aside, the paleobotany (evidence from fossil pollen, plants in the frozen mammoths' stomaches, etc) is TOTALLY out of whack with the author's claim that the animals inhabited a "tropical" climate.

[unlearner]

Science deals in evidence for and against theories and hypotheses, not "proof".

Well you are defending comments by someone who appears to think mammoths having large ears is sufficient to constitute a falsification of the author's hypothesis. It would be reasonable to assert that the explanatory power of this hypothesis does not include the large ears which are better explained by adaptation to colder climates. But that is not the assertion I am criticizing.

My main point is how detractors of ID and creationism are often very hypocritical by jumping the gun. I am somewhat skeptical myself as to whether the author is correct, but it is more appropriate to weigh the explanatory power of this theory against the explanatory power of adapting to cold climates. Instead, opponents have a knee-jerk reaction as if the entire theory of evolution is jeopardized by such a hypothesis (and it isn't).

I don't see creationism or ID as science, but they are not necessarily contrary to science either. If God wanted us to find Him by scientific experimentation, all He needs to do is just show up.