Science and the wild: Who is in control?

In relation to the wild in nature, and in humankind, religion has often been accused, especially in light of the present environmental crisis, of trying to control, or even extinguish, the wild. The Genesis account within the Christian tradition especially has been seen as promoting a type of control and limiting the 'wild' as 'man' is commanded by God to subdue the Earth. Jay Griffiths in Wild - An Elemental Journey (see review in this journal) expresses this criticism when speaking about the early Christian missionaries in South America: 'The missionaries hated the feral shagginess of the Amazon, and early Christian monks considered that the groves and thickets harboured the devil'.