Appeals to authority have rarely been good for humanity.

The scientific method has been such an amazing engine for driving our understanding of the universe around us.

I would argue it doesn’t really require faith, at least not faith in an authority. It starts with a simple setup, any person in any place can propose a hypothesis and back it with evidence. Any other person is welcome to think “that’s not right” and devise an experiment to disprove it.

You only need to have faith that such a setup that incentivizes people disproving untrue things will work to disprove them. And I can look at the history of such a setup, see that historically even well established and respected ideas put forth by experts have been corrected when shown faulty to think “well it seems to work”

And because I don’t have an unwavering faith in the scientific method, some belief that is inarguably true, it allows me to actually look at how that system fails. I don’t need to feel bad about the reproducibility crisis as though it’s some moral failing, instead I can use it to contextualize my understanding of scientific discoveries and others can work on ways to adapt the system to prevent such failures.

There’s the related concept of trust. When the doctor tells me I should take a medicine or do some kind of treatment, I defer to their judgment. Should I blindly submit and obey, if the condition gets worse or if I disagree with their course of action, I needn’t follow it. I can always “trust but verify” and go ask another doctor their opinion.

I find there’s been very little time when people submitting and obeying to an authority simply because they are an authority has been a net good for humanity. Authorities with expertise don't need to make such appeals, and authorities that fall back on “do it because I said so” are often the ones you should obey the least.