Sometimes faith is used as an alternative to reason, a way to designate (and sometimes denigrate) beliefs that are aren’t based on arguments or evidence, or that aren’t assessed critically. On this view, science and faith almost certainly conflict; science is all about arguments, evidence and critical assessment.
At the other extreme, faith can simply mean something like a guiding assumption or presupposition, and on this view, science does require faith. Science as an enterprise is based on the premise that we can generalize from our experience, or as “The Mathematician” put it, that induction works.
Somewhere in between these extremes are the more interesting possibilities. In , I discussed one proposal for how to think about faith, an idea from philosopher Lara Buchak: that faith involves committing to act as if some claim is true without first requiring the examination of further evidence that could bear on the claim….
That the laws of physics are universally applicable is an act of faith, not yet empirically verified, and a seemingly reasonable hypothesis, subject to the caveats of black holes, the various permutations of the standard model and quantum realities and relativity. But with multiverses with individual physical laws per universe posited, I’d say that there is definitely faith going on somewhere.
An elucidation …
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/articles/Modern_Science_and_the_Dehumanization_of_Man-by_Phillip_Sherrard.aspx