Received in revised form

This study examined high school students ' acceptance of evolutionary theory, evolutionary knowledge, and epistemological belief. The Christian and non-Christian students ' acceptance of evolutionary theory and evolution content knowledge were compared in relation to their 'scientific epistemological views' (domain-specific) and 'evolution in relation to nature of science ' (context-specific). The Christian students' evolutionary knowledge was most predicted by the theory-laden exploration of science, while the non-Christian students ' scores on evolutionary knowledge were most predicted by the scientific epistemological views. In addition, the Christian students ' scores on scientific epistemological views and evolution in relation to evolution were not significantly related to each other, while the non-Christian students ' scores on both variables were significantly related. Furthermore, ‘evolution in relation to nature of science ’ is the strongest predictor of both Christian and non-Christian students ' acceptance of evolution. Keywords: theory of evolution, epistemology, nature of science