A major publisher made the unprecedented move of withdrawing a book the day before publication this week following controversial comments by its author about IQ and race.

A statement from Wiley said of The g factor by Chris Brand, lecturer in psychology at Edinburgh: "After careful consideration of the statements recently made by author Christopher Brand as well as some of the views presented in his work . . . we have decided to withdraw the book from publication. The management of John Wiley & Sons Inc. does not want to support these views by disseminating them or be associated with a book that makes assertions that we find repellent." This was despite sending out publicity material last week and announcing a launch for yesterday.

Mr Brand said earlier in the week that black people are less intelligent than whites, and suggested that single women with low IQs should seek higher IQ males to father their children.

He said: "In the scientific sense, I'm a racist, but not in any other sense. There isn't much in the book about race. My views are pretty mainstream for people in psychometric psychology."

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Wiley asked Mr Brand to stop discussing race when publicsing the book. They would not comment on whether there would be any resignations or firings over the issue.

Mr Brand is consulting lawyers and believes his alternatives are either to oblige Wiley to publish or to seek an alternative publisher and damages from Wiley.

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This week some students boycotted his lectures and called for him to be replaced. A university spokeswoman said staff were free to express their views, so long as this was within the law.