  All of these phenomena are taken as evidence that there are features of the tissue microenvironment that affect either the induction of or progression of cancer, and such features are not reducible to, or explainable in terms of properties or processes at or below the cell and molecular level. Further, Soto and Sonnenschein claim that the somatic mutation theory cannot account for these observations, and that they can only be accommodated on a view that takes that tissue architecture itself as causally relevant to the progression of disease, which is described in this case as downward causation.