Absolutely! This is super super important. Fun to work with, not annoying to waste time with.

> know nothing about computers

It's sad that you think this way of people who couldn't answer your questions at the expected level.

> Or are there actually more criteria than you let on here?

Yes! One way to know if they're any good or not suitable is by giving them a problem statement like so:

'Design X, feel free to choose a language that's suitable for this problem', and then may be proceed to hint with: 'You might want to look at advantages of Static versus dynamic typing'… and then let them ask whatever questions they want to ask or read up or search or start implementing whatever.

Observe what they do -- and how fast can they get to the decision of what language and why. And how to make X (break down of steps) or if they can dive and start making X there itself. Note, if they had theoretical knowledge of what you seek during an interview it will work to their advantage naturally. Or sometimes not.

Of course, this process may not work for you as it does for us -- therefore seeking direct answers about static vs dynamic language may not be such a bad question after all (I get it), but expecting people to accurately remember what an http request or its response looks like may not be fruitful at all. It can throw good people off guard and ruin the rest of the interview for them.