See also the monkey ladder experiment: https://www.wisdompills.com/monkey-ladder/ - The behaviour is, of course, not as stupid as it seems. Humans are especially prone to copy extra steps from others that don't seem to add anything.

But sometimes, when you skip over the "useless" steps while preparing a certain kind of food (e.g. for some manioc variant), you may slowly poison yourself over the years. Also, remember to always brush your teeth.