Is reading changing?

Allegedly people are learning a new way of reading, thanks to the internet, which would better be described as skimming. Tony Karrer defends this change:

Yes, we need opportunities to reflect, but for me that's blogging. I'm reflecting on his article as I write. But, indeed, I skimmed through passages.

I’m skeptical that skimming + blogging is as good as careful reading in the first place. I suppose with blogging there’s no accountability to master the material, so you can get a way with skimming and take away whatever you like from a piece without needing to accurately grasp the author’s arguments or position. Perhaps skimming is good enough, then, for what Mr. Karrer is trying to accomplish.

Bit if reading does change to skimming, should writing change to accommodate? Where does that leave the types of writing that aren’t amenable to skimming, like the development of a complex argument or a narrative?

Experimental Philosophy?

A post over on the Mind Hacks blog discusses the possibility of an "experimental philosophy." What would make this philosophy, they argue, is that that it would seek new empirical data that could weigh in on questions philosophers care about.

That's not philosophy. Academic disciplines are defined by their methodology, not the topics of interest to current practitioners. That's why you can have a philosophy of science and a sociology of science and distinguish between them.

This reminds me of a story one of my philosophy professors once told. He was at a party and got into a conversation with a physicist who, upon learning that his conversation partner was a philosopher, asked with some consternation, "What do you take as you data?" Maybe you have to be a philosopher to find that funny, but that's just my point.