If I get on a Boeing aircraft, I am indeed engaging in an act of faith: that it was built properly, maintained well, and all the rest.
When that faith is violated, say by the control systems having the RANDOMLY_FALL_OUT_OF_THE_SKY flag set to “true”, then society engages in faith-restoring rituals: grounds the aircraft, leads an inquiry, does a recall, that sort of thing.
What you are seeing here is what happens when a large chunk of the population has lost faith in, and thus no longer trusts, its institutions.
Yes it's the human element that makes it a faith act. I have no doubts about the physics. The airplane must fly, it's not a matter of faith. But was it built properly, by qualified workers, has it been maintained properly with no shortcuts taken, are there any design flaws not yet discovered, and is it being operated by qualified, sober, healthy pilots?
Is it.. not? Or rather, what would you prefer to call it?
I've long had that opinion - it is faith, in my mind. It's very logical faith, but faith nonetheless. Not in science exactly, but in the morals, honesty and competency in the results of those performing the science. It's faith that if i was to become an expert in the field, i'd be able to recreate their exact results and deem them correct.
Is this unsound in your mind? I'm fairly anti-religious but i have no problem describing my belief in science based outcomes as faith. It doesn't feel reductive, it feels honest - to me. It takes a leap of.. something, if not faith, to trust the results of results of humans. Some science is bad, some is good, but often you lack the expertise to determine which is which. So you logically go with the common assertions and proceed from there. I do think it's logical, but i don't think that precludes it from also being faith.
