"You should be made aware, if you are not already, that although biology
textbooks continue to present Stanley Miller's 1953 experiment as evidence
for a naturalistic origin of life,...."
Which it is, but I'm interrupting.
"...all planetary scientists (including Miller himself) are now convinced
that the atmosphere of the early earth would have made Miller's syntheses
impossible."
Well, not every planetary scientist, and the majority still believe that
very early the atmosphere was composed of the Miller-Urey compounds. It
just didn't last long. However, generally speaking, once again you are
absolutely right.
Funny you should bring this up, though. Here is an abstract from a paper by
WW McAlhaney and DL Rohlfing entitled "Formation of proteinoid microspheres
under simulated prebiotic atmospheres and individual gases" [_Biosystems_
1976;8(2):45-50].
"The formation of microspheres from acidic and basic proteinoids was
attempted under simulated prebiotic atmospheres and constituent gases
thereof. Both types of proteinoid yielded microspheres under carbon dioxide,
carbon monoxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen
(tested separately) and also under nitrogen-carbon dioxide atmospheres;
higher proportions of carbon dioxide resulted in fewer spheres from basic
proteinoid. Neither type of proteinoid formed spheres on 10-minute exposure
to ammonia or methane-hydrogen-ammonia atmospheres. (Brief exposure resulted
in spheres from basic proteinoid.) The effects, both qualitative and
quantitative, were indicated by control experiments to be due to pH, rather
than to the specific gas (or ion). The results suggest that the proteinoid
microsphere model for protocells is applicable under a variety of possible
prebiotic atmospheres, with some restrictions imposed by pH."
The take-home lesson would be that by whatever method the amino acids were
created (even supernaturally), the abiotic process of thermal
copolymerization could have taken over and made both proteinoids and
microsphere under almost any atmospheric condition.
Kevin L. O'Brien