I guess a "counterproductive result" is one that fills a much-needed gap. On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:

The last sentence of the abstract for Dierk Schleicher's recent talk "Old and new about the dynamics of iterated transcendental functions" at Tufts may amuse you:

Abstract: Much of holomorphic dynamics in the past 30 years has focused on iterated rational maps and especially polynomials, but especially in recent years there has been quite some progress on iterated transcendental maps. In particular, several conjectures of the 1980's ("classical" in this field) have recently been settled. This often leads to natural and at the same time surprising and even counterproductive results.

Jim Propp