You're confusing static typing with explicit typing. This is static typing's version of the "dynamic typing doesn't have to be weak typing" argument. There are

You're confusing static typing with explicit typing. This is static typing's version of the "dynamic typing doesn't have to be weak typing" argument. There are a variety of languages that don't impose explicit typing on you to enable static typing. OCaml and Haskell are popular options. Scala makes the compromise choice of having explicit function signatures with inferred typing elsewhere. If the only thing you're using the type system for is to make sure arguments line up, you're barely using it at all. When your types can encode (and thus, ensure) aspects of your program logic, that is when static typing becomes useful.