The only reason I talk about empirical evidence is because I constantly see sweeping claims regarding efficacy of static typing. If somebody makes broad claims

The only reason I talk about empirical evidence is because I constantly see sweeping claims regarding efficacy of static typing. If somebody makes broad claims of one approach being strictly superior to the other, then the burden of proof is indeed on them to support said claims. The null hypothesis is that both approaches are effective, and it's in line with all the currently available research on the topic [1]. Furthermore, fixating on static typing as the one defining feature of a language amounts to concept space reduction. In practice, there are many complex factors that contribute to overall quality of the language that have to be considered holistically. [1] https://danluu.com/empirical-pl/ https://danluu.com/empirical-pl/