God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Humans are capable of controlling and subduing nature.
Biology
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The cited passage
What current science says
Humans cannot control nature. We can't stop earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, or tsunamis—we can only try to predict them and minimize damage. Climate change shows even our own pollution creates effects we now struggle to reverse. When we've tried to control nature—like introducing cane toads in Australia or kudzu to control erosion—it has backfired badly, causing ecological disasters. Nature's forces are simply too massive; it's like trying to boil the ocean with a campfire.
What the text says
God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.