The utility of one star reviews

While writing up the last review I took the time to look at the other reviews I could find online. I noticed something that I have noticed other times when dealing with books that have controversial topics. Often the one star reviews are more useful to me than the five star reviews for the simple reason that if one star reviews are able to use actual facts to show their arguments are correct, that gives the book less credibility, while if the one star reviews simply involve ad hominem attacks without giving reasons then that strengthens the book. For example, many years ago I worked up a reading list on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by reading one star reviews. If the one star reviews said that the author was either an anti Semite or part of the Zionist conspiracy without providing examples of how they were wrong, it was likely that the book was much closer to the truth than the negative reviewer wished to admit. I naturally found that out with the previous book on the Tamil Tigers.