Here at The Badger Herald, we like kitties. Some of us are dog people, others are cat people, but we all can identify with one personality trait: We like science.

So we were not upset when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an organization so committed to furry friends that it sometimes loses sight of people, waged a campaign against the University of Wisconsin’s animal research testing – specifically cochlear implants in a cat named Double Trouble.

The photos were graphic and troubling, but so are a litany of scientific realities. We enjoy criticism of the University of Wisconsin’s sometimes tone-deaf administration, but UW handled the Double Trouble incident with intelligence and reason this time around.

Without the use of animal testing, we doubt society and this university would advance human innovation and health as much as it has to date. And while it’s reprehensible that things can go wrong in experiments with animals, the scientists involved in the implants study acted within the realm of scientific testing ethics.

We hope the UW community’s experience with PETA this semester was a cautionary tale about the limits of scientific criticism. Scientists can and have acted unethically, but this was not one of those cases.

We like science. We value life – including those of cats! But seriously, fuck PETA.