英国研究人员对超过３０００人进行调查后发现，一个人聪明与否和他的基因有很大关系，不过，智力并非仅受少数基因影响，而是受到至少数千个基因的影响。
英国爱丁堡大学等机构研究人员在新一期《分子精神病学》杂志上发表论文说，他们对３５１１名无亲缘关系的成年人进行基因调查，具体工作是对这些人体内超过５０万个发生单核苷酸多态性（ＳＮＰ）变异的基因位点进行研究。研究发现，这些变异与个体在两种评估智力的心理测试中的表现有关：一种是通过词汇测试衡量记忆知识能力，另一种衡量解决问题的技巧。结果发现，对智力产生影响的基因变异达到数千个以上，它们总体上对智力的影响高达５０％。
研究小组负责人、爱丁堡大学的伊恩·迪里教授表示：“基因对任何个体差异，譬如说身高、体重等的影响都不是来自单个基因，而是许多基因的综合影响。我们认为这是解释智力差异的一种可能性。我们的研究结果也和这一结论相符。”
虽然研究人员现在知道基因对个体智力差异有很大影响，但他们仍然不清楚哪些基因对智力的影响是决定性的。迪里教授表示：“如果能找到这样的基因，探究到底，那么就能找到决定智力的一些因素。目前我们只能估计这个数字会很大，至少涉及好几千个基因。”
牛津布鲁克斯大学生物人类学高级讲师西蒙·昂德当表示，人类智力是“我们进化的一个惊人成果”。他还说：“这一研究明确表明，人类智力的基因基础不是单个基因发生变异产生的结果，而是受许多基因的影响。这是人类进化的结果。”
生物探索推荐英文论文摘要：
Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic
General intelligence is an important human quantitative trait that accounts for much of the variation in diverse cognitive abilities. Individual differences in intelligence are strongly associated with many important life outcomes, including educational and occupational attainments, income, health and lifespan. Data from twin and family studies are consistent with a high heritability of intelligence, but this inference has been controversial. We conducted a genome-wide analysis of 3511 unrelated adults with data on 549 692 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and detailed phenotypes on cognitive traits. We estimate that 40% of the variation in crystallized-type intelligence and 51% of the variation in fluid-type intelligence between individuals is accounted for by linkage disequilibrium between genotyped common SNP markers and unknown causal variants. These estimates provide lower bounds for the narrow-sense heritability of the traits. We partitioned genetic variation on individual chromosomes and found that, on average, longer chromosomes explain more variation. Finally, using just SNP data we predicted ~1% of the variance of crystallized and fluid cognitive phenotypes in an independent sample (P=0.009 and 0.028, respectively). Our results unequivocally confirm that a substantial proportion of individual differences in human intelligence is due to genetic variation, and are consistent with many genes of small effects underlying the additive genetic influences on intelligence.
