While the results of a Pew Research Center survey released on Monday show that the percentage of Americans that believe in evolution has remained roughly the same in recent years, the poll also found that the gap between partisan groups has widened significantly.

The poll showed that 60 percent of Americans say that "humans and other living things have evolved over time," while 33 percent believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

The results are similar to a poll conducted in May of 2009 that showed that 61 percent of Americans believed in evolution and 31 percent rejected the idea.

Among those that believe in evolution, 32 percent say that it is "due to natural processes such as natural selection," while 24 percent believe a supreme being played a role in the process.

The poll also found sizable differences by party affiliation, with 67 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Independents saying that humans have evolved over time compared with 43 percent of Republicans.

The percentage of Republicans that believe in evolution has shown a notable drop from 54 percent in the poll conducted in 2009.

The gap between Republicans and Democrats has subsequently grown to 24 points compared to just 10 points in the previous survey.

"Differences in the racial and ethnic composition of Democrats and Republicans or differences in their levels of religious commitment do not wholly explain partisan differences in beliefs about evolution," Pew said. "Indeed, the partisan differences remain even when taking these other characteristics into account."

The Pew survey of 1,983 adults was conducted March 21st through April 8th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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