To say that it doesn't take a certain degree of faith to believe that science is correct in what it has discovered would be silly and ignorant. Unless a person has done the research themselves, run the experiments, unearthed and studied the fossils, or made the direct observations, that person must trust, or have faith, that the scientists that have done these things have done them in such a way as to be correct and honest about their results. And we have had many instances of where science has been incorrect because of coming to a conclusion prematurely before eliminating all possible falsifications as well as some scientists that have just out and out faked the results to get to the conclusion they desire. But these instances are in the very small minority.
Occasionally, something new will be found that will show that even long standing ideas and conclusions had been wrong all along. But that is the nature of science. While the results can almost never be a concrete set-in-stone absolute, they can be considered a near certainty due to the evidence found and studied. Even at that, sometimes the results must be tweaked in lieu of new evidence. Science is an ongoing endeavor, constantly looking for new and better explanations for the world and universe we find ourselves in.
But while we must have the faith that what scientists tell us is true, they can at least show us the evidence or studies from which they drew their conclusions. Unsupported results would not be tolerated. So while some degree of faith in science is needed , it is not at the same level that religion requires.
Most major religions have a book from which the faithful draw their conclusions. And regardless of the amount of studies that are done into the writings and authors on which their book is based, in the end, it still comes down to the fact that they are basing their entire belief system on a book which was written centuries or even millenia ago when science was in it's infancy. They pondered their existence and that of the world around them, and without the resources to study and research these things, the most logical conclusion to them was "God did it." And even then, there were skeptics because even the Bible and Koran warn of those that say there is no god. Yet as we know today, there is no evidence to back up that which is written in the texts of religion. There is not one iota of proof to back up what is written there. On the contrary, many things in the Bible can be shown to be demonstrably wrong. Yet many, if not most, believers today still believe the Bible to be the true word of God. They don't believe it because it has been shown to be true, they believe it because they want it to be true. This requires a leap of faith that defies all logic and explanation.
So while both religion and our everyday lives require faith in many things, the type and degree of faith is different. But for a non-believer to say that science does not require faith is just as fallacious as the religious to say that putting faith in anything is religion.
